On Taqlıˉd

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 On Taqlıˉd
Ibn al Qayyim’s Critique of
Authority in Islamic Law
z
A BDUL- R AHMAN M USTAFA

1
 1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mustafa, Abdul-Rahman.
On taqlīd : Ibn al Qayyim’s critique of authority in Islamic law / Abdul-Rahman Mustafa.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-993751-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Taqlīd. 2. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah,
Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, 1292–1350. I’lam al-muwaqqi’in ʿan rabb al-’alamin. 3. Islamic
law—Interpretation and construction. I. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr,
1292–1350. I’lam al-muwaqqi’in ʿan rabb al-’alamin. English. Selections. II. Title.
KBP454.M87 2013
340.5’9—dc23
2012020492

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1
An Exposition on Imitation 61
A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 83

Glossary 195
Notes 199
Bibliography 223
Index 231
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 Acknowledgments

this work would have been impossible without the support of Shaykh
Mashhūr Ḥasan. His scholarship has set a very high standard for those
who follow in his footsteps. His help and encouragement is greatly appre-
ciated.
Hafiz Hasan Madni was an extremely generous teacher and colleague,
who helped at various stages to make this work a reality.
Hafiz Naeem was very helpful with the referencing and translation.
H. Khan reviewed the manuscript several times and was always a source
of great help and much inspiration.
Mr. Anwar Kamal deserves special thanks for his generous assistance.
I would also like to thank everyone at Oxford University Press, particu-
larly Cynthia Read, Charlotte Steinhardt, Rick Stinson, and the copyedi-
tors for their valuable assistance.
Yassin Rashid knows how thankful I am to have him as a fellow traveler.
Finally, this work is dedicated to my parents, Farida and Tariq, and to
my brother, Saad.
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On Taqlıˉd
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 Introduction

an old arab proverb says that things are known by their opposites. The
best place, then, for us to begin our introduction to Ibn al-Qayyim’s
(d. 751/1350) essay on taqlīd is with one of its most substantial refutations:

In the worst of times, a misguided group arose—insulting the Imāms,

condemning taqlīd, and calling on others to do the same, even though
most of their criticisms and all their proofs are based on taqlīd of their
predecessors. . . . In reality these people are greater muqallids than the
muqallids themselves. For the muqallids only oblige a non-mujtahid to
imitate a mujtahid, while these people obligate the mujtahid to imitate
them. . . . They call people to abandon taqlīd of the mujtahid scholars
and imitate themselves instead. . . . No rational person was left in any
doubt about the ignorance and deviance of these people, for it did not
lead anywhere except self-contradiction in their opinions and actions.
For they condemned the practice of others while choosing something
far worse for themselves. They forbade others from doing something
but then obliged them to do that which was far more repulsive. How-
ever, since their doubts and deceptions have misled those who lack
knowledge and because they have spread among them, we have
deemed it appropriate to expose their deception.
Now, since the debate over ijtihād and taqlīd is the fundamental
and greatest battle between us and them, we took up this matter
here, in this introduction, presenting it in the most complete and
perfect way. That is because we observed that Ibn al-Qayyim, who is
the father of this group, spoke at great length on this issue in the
Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn, to the extent that he has left nothing to say for
those who come after him.1
2 on taqlīd

The main topic addressed by Ibn al-Qayyim in the essay presented in this
volume is taqlīd and its validity in Islamic law. It is remarkable that, de-
spite the seminal importance of this text of Ibn al-Qayyim, which ranks
as one of the most significant works on Islamic legal theory ever written,
it has not been the subject of much commentary or discussion in any
European language. In fact Ibn al-Qayyim’s works in general, despite
their immense popularity in the Muslim world, have not, until now, been
considered worthy of serious study by Western scholars.2 One reason for
this is that Ibn al-Qayyim has been obscured by his master Ibn Taymi-
yyah (d. 728/1328), whose forceful personality, lively intellect and con-
tested legacy have aroused greater interest amongst later scholars.3 Ibn
al-Qayyim, in turn, has often been seen as a mere mouthpiece for the
thoughts of Ibn Taymiyyah, and it has been assumed that Ibn al-Qayyim
himself was not a particularly interesting or original author. Yet another
reason for Ibn al-Qayyim’s lack of popularity in the West has to do with
the fact that there has been, in general, so little Orientalist scholarship on
the Ḥanbalī school, to which Ibn al-Qayyim belonged.4
In the Islamic world, by contrast, Ibn al-Qayyim continues to be ac-
knowledged not just as one of its most prolific authors but also as one of its
most influential and original theologians and jurists.5 He composed sev-
eral works on exegesis, Prophetic traditions, theology, and Islamic critiques
of Judaism and Christianity. His works in the fields of legal and political
theory (Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn and Ṭuruq al-ḥukmiyyah), Sufism (Madārij al-
sālikīn) and Prophetic biography (Zād al-maʿād) are ground-breaking, as
each marks a new way of thinking and writing in its respective genre. His
views on procedural law and the role and function of the judiciary in an
Islamic state have proved enormously influential in the Muslim world and
have provided the underpinning for the legal systems of countries such as
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan. In the extract cited above, which comes
from a refutation of Ibn al-Qayyim written almost seven centuries after his
death by Ḥabīb Aḥmad Kīrānwī, a Deobandī Ḥanafī scholar living in colo-
nial India in the 1930s, we can see that Ibn al-Qayyim continues to play a
very significant role in ongoing debates between contemporary Islamic
movements in South Asia and the broader Muslim world. Entitled al-Dīn
al-qayyim (The Upright Faith), Kīrānwī’s refutation proclaims by its very
title that it is meant as a full-fledged attack on Ibn al-Qayyim’s essay on
taqlīd, playing, as it does, with Ibn al-Qayyim’s patronymic (naṣab). Al-dīn
al-qayyim appears as an independent essay in the grand Deobandī Ḥanafī
summa composed primarily by Zafar ʿUthmānī (d. 1974), the multi-volume
 Introduction 3

Iʿlāʾ al-sunan.6 Together with Ashraf ʿAlī Thānwī (d. 1943), the leading
Deobandī scholar of the day, who encouraged and supervised the project,
ʿUthmānī, Kīrānwī and other Deobandī luminaries involved in the compo-
sition of the Iʿlāʾ sought therein to present a rigorous defense of the Ḥanafī
school’s substantive law and its jurisprudential principles, which were
under heavy attack by the South Asian Ahl-e Ḥadīth. Both the Ahl-e Ḥadīth
and the Deobandīs were revivalist movements that started in colonial India
in the nineteenth century, with the aim of revitalizing Islamic thought and
practice, but the two groups had very different ideas about how to bring
about this much desired Islamic renaissance. The Deobandīs (named after
the area where the first seminary disseminating the views of this school of
thought was established) advocated strong and uncompromising taqlīd of
the Ḥanafī school as the way for Muslims in the nineteenth century to
recreate a link with an authentic Islamic religious tradition, a link that they
believed had been severed in their own time. By contrast, the Ahl-e Ḥadīth
(who as their name suggests, identified themselves as followers of ḥadīth)
identified taqlīd itself as one of the reasons for the crisis of nineteenth-
century Islam. Their prescription for the ills of Muslim society thus in-
cluded an abandonment of taqlīd of the established schools of Islamic law,
some of whose rulings they criticized for not being based on the ḥadīth.
The stage was thus set for a sustained and bitter debate between these two
South Asian sects which, to this day, shapes Islamic cultural and intellec-
tual life on the Indian subcontinent and beyond. As we shall see, Ibn al-
Qayyim’s writing on taqlīd made him one of the most influential personali-
ties to feature in this debate.
The fact that privileged medieval scholars of the Mamluk period, as
well as their marginalized twentieth-century counterparts in British
India, should see it as their scholarly duty to expound on the concept of
taqlīd says something about the centrality of the topic to Muslim identity.
More than any other jurisprudential topic, a scholar’s or even a layman’s
position on taqlīd continues to act as a sign of their individual and collec-
tive identity in the Muslim community. It is thus not only South Asian
scholarly circles that have seen, since the late nineteenth century, particu-
larly bitter debates on the topic of taqlīd: almost every traditional revivalist
Islamic movement and thinker since the eighteenth century has, to some
extent, criticized the taqlīd practiced by their contemporaries. This is true
of the founder of the so-called Wahhābī sect, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-
Wahhāb (d. 1792), the Yemeni “Salafī” revivalists al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1182/1768)
and al-Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834), the Mughal-era revivalist Shāh Walī
4 on taqlīd

Allāh of Delhi (d. 1762), and the Egyptian thinker Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935),
to name a few.7
This should not be taken to mean that criticism of taqlīd is a phenom-
enon of late modernity, for, as we shall see, medieval Muslim jurists had
almost as much to say against taqlīd as did later Muslim revivalists. What
does distinguish modern debates on taqlīd from earlier ones is the pres-
ence, in later periods, of a group of reformists (as opposed to revivalists)
who simply reject the method of argumentation employed by classical
scholars in arguing for or against taqlīd. Instead, the reformists seek to
introduce “modern” thought and practice to the Islamic legal tradition,
and it is for this reason that they reject the notion of taqlīd. This is some-
thing that distinguishes these reformists from those classical and modern
scholars whose arguments for and against taqlīd are based primarily on
their understanding of scripture and traditional Islam. Among the latter
are critics of taqlīd, such as the South Asian Ahl-e Ḥadīth, the Wahhābīs,
traditional Salafīs such as the late ḥadīth expert Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī
(d. 1999), internationally renowned scholars such as Yūsuf al-Qaraḍāwī,
as well as leading Islamists such as Sayyid Quṭb (d. 1966) and Abū l-Aʿlā
Mawdūdī (d. 1979).8 On the other hand, scholars such as Taqī ʿUthmānī,
al-Būṭī, and al-Yāfiʿī (see bibliography) continue, with varying degrees of
emphasis, to keep alive a tradition of pro-taqlīd scholarship.9 Almost all
the authors mentioned above, both for and against taqlīd, do refer at some
point to Ibn al-Qayyim’s discussion on taqlīd, and most assert that it is one
that cannot be surpassed, an opinion expressed also by Kīrānwī in the ex-
tract quoted above.
Outside of South Asia, the participants in the debates over taqlīd may
be different, but the basic ideas being discussed are similar. In South
Africa and the United Kingdom, a growing number of Deobandī seminar-
ies continue to advocate the Deobandī position in favor of taqlīd. In turn,
they are opposed by various Salafī groups and by Islamists influenced by
the Egyptian Ikhwān or the Pakistani Jamāt-e Islāmī (although these
groups also differ among themselves on the topic of taqlīd). In recent years
it has also become de rigueur for famous Western converts to Islam to
expound on the topic of taqlīd, which they all, despite their differing judg-
ments on it, see as one of the central issues facing the Muslim commu-
nity. While some, such as Muhammad Asad (d. 1992), have taken a
broadly anti-taqlīd stance, others, such as Nuh Ha Mim Keller and Tim
Winter (who also writes under the pseudonym Abdal Hakim Murad), have
taken a strongly pro-taqlīd stance.10
 Introduction 5

In the political realm too, their varying positions on taqlīd explain, at

least in part, the divisions among various Islamist groups vying for politi-
cal influence in Muslim countries. In Egypt, the Salafist al-Nūr party and
the Muslim Brotherhood accuse each other of adopting incorrect posi-
tions on the issue of ijtihād and taqlīd. In Pakistan, too, the Jamāt-e Islāmī
and other Deobandī and Ahl-e Ḥadīth political parties—such as the
Jamīʿat ʿUlamā-e Islām and the Markazī Jamīʿat Ahl-e Ḥadīth—continue
to differ over the extent to which taqlīd ought to be the governing principle
of the legal system of an Islamic state. Such differences have prevented
Pakistan’s religious political parties from agreeing on a program for the
Islamization of the country’s laws and given the country’s rulers a conve-
nient excuse for their inability to bring about greater Islamization. Differ-
ences over taqlīd also account for a significant part of the internal debate
that takes place among various militant organizations, such as al-Qāʿidah
and the Taliban, who adopt radically different positions on the issue of
taqlīd. Abdullah Azzam, the leading scholarly advocate of jihād in the
1980s and the mentor of Osama bin Laden, wrote an influential book, Join
the Caravan, encouraging non-Afghans to participate in the Afghan jihād
against the Soviet Union. He felt compelled to warn his readers, however,
of the Afghan proclivity for taqlīd of the Ḥanafī school which made the
Afghans intolerant of other schools of law which they believed “were not
part of Islam.”11 It is not surprising, then, that in recent years even the US
government, or at least what might mordantly be called its “thinking arm,”
has become involved in determining how best the debates among the var-
ious schools of Islamic law and their positions on taqlīd can be used to its
advantage. For example, in a report published by the RAND Corporation,
Cheryl Bernard, the wife of a former US ambassador to Iraq and Afghani-
stan, advises the United States to “encourage” Ḥanafī law, in order to
“weaken the authority of backward Wahhabi religious rulings.”12 The
RAND corporation’s understanding of Islam does not mark the nadir but
only the continuation of a tradition of Western commentary on Islam and
taqlīd, for many Western intellectuals have seen their own culture primar-
ily in terms of its opposition to the kind of ijtihād or taqlīd that they be-
lieved to be prevalent in Islamic law. This is true of jurists such as the
distinguished American legal scholar Roscoe Pound and sociologists such
as Max Weber, who showed little awareness of the importance of taqlīd in
Islamic thought and were dismissive of what they saw as unregulated
ijtihād of Islam. On the other hand, those English judges of the Privy
Council who adjudicated cases dealing with Indian Anglo-Muhammadan
6 on taqlīd

law did so with the conviction that, unlike the common law, which was
based on judicial discretion and equity, Islamic law did not allow for ijtihād
and was an entirely formalistic taqlīd-bound system.13 Taqlīd and ijtihād,
then, are not only concepts by which Muslims mark their own identities
but by which their identities are marked by “others.” Those “others” in
turn have often defined themselves in terms of their own opposition to
ijtihād or taqlīd.

Why Taqlı-d?
As with all intense and lengthy arguments, the longevity of the debate on
taqlīd has much to do with the conflicting ways in which the underlying
ideas have been understood and discussed. Etymology alone offers little
help. Taqlīd is derived from the Arabic root q-l-d, meaning “to bind an
animal.” In technical use it means “to copy, imitate.” Ijtihād is from the
root j-h-d, meaning “to struggle, persevere.” For classical Muslim jurispru-
dents and theologians, ijtihād thus represented a variety of activities that,
at their core, involved exerting oneself to arrive at the correct answer to a
given question, often with reference to scripture. Taqlīd was, by contrast,
seen as accepting and following the views of someone whose opinion was
not itself considered a proof. Knowing that Muslim scholars were, by and
large, working with these definitions in mind does not explain the longev-
ity and intensity of the debate on taqlīd. To understand that, we have to
understand why taqlīd assumed such a great importance in Islamic intel-
lectual life.
This is, however, a subject on which there is little agreement, as schol-
ars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, disagree not only on the definition of
taqlīd but also on the reason it gained such prominence in Islamic legal
culture. Part of the explanation clearly lies in the level of passion the topic
raises amongst individual Muslims. To adopt a particular position on
taqlīd is to adopt a particular view on questions of right and wrong and to
make a statement about one’s right and ability to adopt such a view. With
the rise of literacy and the spread of scholarly literature and discourse in
the public realm, it is hardly surprising that vast numbers of Muslims
should take an interest in such questions.
Scholars have also tried to account for the rise of taqlīd with reference
to other social factors. Some suggest that the institution of taqlīd was used
in an attempt to solidify religious law and prevent it from being interfered
with by political authorities.14 Others believe that the rise of taqlīd was a
 Introduction 7

result of the desire of the scholarly class to limit the discretionary powers
of legal officials at the bottom of the legal hierarchy, by obliging them to
adhere to a particular school of law.15 Yet others argue that the emergence
of a regime of taqlīd was an inevitable result of the pressures that push all
legal systems toward greater institutionalization. Evidence for this institu-
tional pressure in favor of taqlīd can be seen in most legal systems, even
those in which there is a widespread distaste for rigid taqlīd. In Saudi
Arabia, for instance, despite the anti-taqlīd stance of the majority of the
Ḥanbalī religious elite, there have been calls from some members of that
elite for a set of codified laws that all judges would be obliged to follow.16
In this light, Professor Sherman Jackson’s observation hits the mark—
ijtihād and taqlīd are not mutually exclusive moments in Muslim history
but competing hegemonies that stood and continue to stand in perpetual
competition with each other.17
The institutionalization of taqlīd has also been defended, as we shall
see, on the grounds that it prevented ordinary Muslims (and scholars),
from seeking legal loopholes by following isolated opinions and legal dis-
pensations from the various schools of law. Instead, the doctrine of taqlīd
supposedly compelled ordinary Muslims to obtain legal rulings from a
particular school of law, while compelling scholars to follow a particular
set of jurisprudential principles, on which they could base their legal rul-
ings consistently, rather than relying on contradictory principles from the
various schools.
We shall return to Ibn al-Qayyim’s specific responses to some of these
arguments below. Here, we need only point out that these arguments do
lose some of their force in view of the fact that scholars from nearly every
school did actually accept the practice of combining the rulings of two
schools to validate an act whose individual parts would not be recognized
as valid by either one of them, a practice known as talfīq.18 That this doc-
trine was associated particularly with the strongly pro-taqlīd Ḥanafīs and
that some of its strongest opponents were the taqlīd-wary Ḥanbalīs, sug-
gests that the more insistent a school was on taqlīd—as the Ḥanafīs were,
by and large—the greater its recourse to talfīq in order to provide some
flexibility for ordinary Muslims who could not be expected always to know,
let alone adhere to, the opinions of their school on all matters. Talfīq thus
allowed a ritual act of worship—such as prayer, marriage, or even a con-
tract of sale, all of which would be regarded as acts of worship if per-
formed in accordance with the sharīʿah—to be validated by having the in-
dividual parts of such acts approved by different schools. By contrast, a
8 on taqlīd

school that emphasized obedience to scripture over the necessity of taqlīd,

as the Ḥanbalīs generally did, would be more likely to regard talfīq as un-
necessary or illegitimate. Unnecessary, that is, if talfīq validated an act that
was legitimate in light of scripture anyway—and illegitimate if it validated
an act not in harmony with scripture in the first place.19

Taqlı-d: The Layman’s Boon?

The rise of taqlīd has also been seen as an inevitable development in
Islamic law, because it provided the layman with a definitive answer to
all his legal queries, thus keeping him from becoming lost in the bewil-
dering complexity of disagreement (ikhtilāf ) that existed on almost every
legal question discussed by Muslim scholars. But this explanation of the
rise of taqlīd too is unsatisfactory, for it assumes that the regime of
taqlīd ends the confusion and bewilderment of the layman and legal of-
ficials, whereas complexity continues, in fact, to be a feature of the
regime of taqlīd. In terms of complexity, then, the only difference be-
tween the regime of ijtihād and the regime of taqlīd is that in the latter,
instead of (supposedly nonexistent) mujtahids, it is muftīs within the
school who now have to deal with increased complexity, leading to a
great deal of scholarly disagreement or ikhtilāf. Jackson has rightly
pointed out that the regime of taqlīd fits the definition of the kind of
legal system that, for all its sophistication and “advancement,” is marked
by an increased rigidity, an inability to respond to the practical needs of
society, horrendous complexity, and remoteness and confusion for
lawyer and layman alike.20
Muslim scholars such as Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd (d. 702/1303) point out that a
layman’s burden could actually be said to increase under the regime of
taqlīd. In the regime of ijtihād, a layman could assume that the legal ver-
dicts (fatāwā, sing. fatwā) he obtains are based on scripture, not just on the
prevailing opinion of a school. In a regime of taqlīd, he would have to
make certain that the fatāwā he obtains are based on scripture, because
many fatāwā in this regime would be based simply on the prevailing
opinion of a school.21 Ibn al-Qayyim, too, argues that, when faced with
disagreement between scholars, a non-scholar would bear the burden of
determining whether one of the scholars was more knowledgeable than
the other and would then be required to follow him.22 Even pro-taqlīd Ḥanafī
scholars often celebrate Prophetic traditions (aḥādīth, sing. ḥadīth) that
speak of a person obtaining a fatwā from his heart, thereby accepting that
 Introduction 9

there is, in the end, little else a layman can do when faced with the bewil-
dering complexity of the madhhab system and the reality of ikhtilāf within
his own school.23 Ibn ʿĀbidīn (d. 1252/1836), the towering figure of au-
thority in the Ḥanafī school, refers to a protracted debate in his school
over the question of whether or not a layman is obliged to identify the
most knowledgeable scholar and imitate him. The mere existence of this
debate shows the great confusion experienced by both laymen and schol-
ars under the regime of taqlīd.24 Even scholars who absolve the layman of
this responsibility, such as the great Shāfiʿī ḥadīth commentator Ibn
Ḥajar (d. 852/1448), often require the layman to use specific criteria for
selecting one scholarly opinion over another. Ibn ʿĀbidīn—while arguing
that laymen need not even have a madhhab and could, moreover, change
their madhhab every day—insists that they may not do so on invalid
grounds, which suggests that valid grounds would have to be presented
(even if only to oneself ) to justify such a decision. This, too, suggests that,
for both the ordinary Muslim and the scholar, the regime of taqlīd was at
least as complex as the regime of ijtihād.25 Indeed, Ibn al-Qayyim reports
that there are as many as seven divergent scholarly positions on how a
layman should act when faced with ikhtilāf between two muftīs—hardly
what one expects of a system designed to make things less complex for
the layman.26
It is true that scholars in the regime of taqlīd often spoke about the
judgment of the qāḍī (judge) or the verdict of the muftī acting as a scrip-
tural text (naṣṣ) for an ordinary Muslim, suggesting that he could rely com-
pletely on these and not concern himself with the objective truth.27 State-
ments such as these must, however, be balanced against the opinions of
many scholars (with the notable exception of the Ḥanafīs) who also held
that a judge’s ruling, even if issued validly by him, in accordance with his
school, would not render lawful that which was actually impermissible in
the sharīʿah. This would mean that an ordinary litigant who obtained an
objectively incorrect judgment in his favor could not lawfully rely on it if
he knew it to be incorrect, even if it was based on the valid opinion of a
school of law.28
Perhaps the strongest argument against the idea that the rise of
taqlīd can be explained by the fact that it made life easier for the lay
person by obliging him to follow a single school is that the vast majority
of Muslim scholars never required the layman to adhere to a single
madhhab—in fact, they regarded it as improper for him to do so.29 Even
the Ḥanafī school, traditionally the most dedicated to the concept of
10 on taqlīd

taqlīd, produced several scholars who argued that a layman could not
claim to belong to a specific madhhab, as this was a privilege of the
scholar or the student of law.30 The Ḥanafī scholar Muḥammad Saʿīd
Albānī (not to be confused with the famous Salafī ḥadīth scholar Nāṣir
al-Dīn al-Albānī), bases his arguments in favor of talf īq on the fact that
ordinary Muslims in his age and earlier never performed their prayers
strictly according to a particular school and should not be burdened
with having to know the technical rules regarding the validity of their
prayer according to a single school.31 Albānī was, of course, aware that,
by making that argument, he was associating himself with Ḥanbalīs
such as Ibn al-Qayyim, who had long argued that a layman does not
adhere to a specific madhhab.32

Taqlı-d: The Scholar’s Bane?

The aforementioned explanation of the rise of taqlīd has proved so endur-
ing because muqallid scholars themselves regularly invoked the figure of
the layman to justify the institution of taqlīd. In fact, they would even in-
clude themselves in this category, pleading that as mere muqallids they
could celebrate the ideal of ijtihād but could not employ it to change the
rulings of their madhhabs. Their status as muqallids meant that they
could only narrate and transmit the rulings of their predecessors, an ar-
gument made repeatedly in Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s Radd al-muḥtār and ʿUthmānī’s
Iʿlāʾ al-sunan.33 This argument had already been considered, and rejected,
by Ibn Rushd (d. 520/1126, the grandfather of the Ibn Rushd famous in
the West as Averroës), who insisted that transmission could not count as
fatwā and that someone who could only narrate a fatwā therefore had no
authority to issue one. Ibn al-Qayyim too, argues that a person who is
asked to relate madhhab rulings may transmit them but cannot call him-
self a muftī of Islam, because the religion is not confined to a single
school of law.34
Muqallid scholars tended to insist, however, that they could not go out-
side the jurisprudential principles on which the legal rulings of their pre-
decessors were based without succumbing to inconsistency. In reality
there has always been, as critics of taqlīd have pointed out, considerable
disagreement over whether the legal rulings of the schools are deduced on
the basis of preexisting jurisprudential principles, or whether these prin-
ciples themselves were invented by muqallid jurists to harmonize and jus-
tify previous legal rulings. The renowned Indian traditionist Shāh Walī
 Introduction 11

Allāh, for instance, argued that madhhab principles were invented later, in
order to justify the existing rulings of the madhhab:

Amongst them (the new developments) are that I have found some
of them claiming that the basis of disagreement between Abū
Hanīfa and al-Shaāfiʿī, may God be pleased with both of them, is
founded on those principles which are mentioned in the book of
al-Pazdawī and other similar ones. Rather the truth is that most of
them are principles derived on the basis of their opinions.

Shāh Walī Allāh then goes on to list various principles that were upheld in
the Ḥanafī school, such as preferring a ḥadīth because of the greater
number of its narrators, distinguishing between those who are legal ex-
perts and those who are not when accepting their ḥadīth, and specifying
general legal statements in light of specific ones. Having discussed these
principles, Shāh Walī Allāh argues that these and similar issues:

. . . are principles derived from the statements of the founders (of

the legal schools). These are not soundly transmitted from Abū
Hanifa and his associates, and holding to them and taking troubles
to refute what contravenes them among the practices of the earlier
ones in their references as al-Pazdawī and others did, is not more
correct than holding what opposes these and responding with what
refutes them.35

The debate over whether or not jurisprudential principles preceded sub-

stantive legal opinions shows the extent to which jurists operating in the
regime of taqlīd themselves had trouble deciphering the exact implication
of terms such as ijtihād, tarjīḥ (preferring one opinion over another),
muqallid, and mujtahid. While some muqallid scholars did see taqlīd as a
form of ijtihād because muqallid scholars engaged in the exercise of prefer-
ring certain legal opinions over others (tarjīḥ), others held that taqlīd
meant that all the legal opinions handed down from the early scholars of
their schools had to be followed. The latter trend reflects, as Jackson sug-
gests, a kind of despair and disillusionment generated by the loss of a legal
system in which ijtihād, not taqlīd, was the archetypal juristic activity. The
loss of this ijtihād-based legal system pushes some jurists to insist that
everything the mujtahid imāms say must be accepted and made the sub-
ject of imitation, including their legal rulings, their verdicts on ḥadīth, and
12 on taqlīd

their interpretations of the Qurʾan. According to Jackson, such claims re-

flect the fact that a legal structure consisting of several tiers has become
too complex and is therefore reduced to just a few, such as taqlīd, which
are then taken to constitute the entire system.36 This is, in fact, one of Ibn
al-Qayyim’s main criticisms of the regime of taqlīd—it begins to treat
taqlīd not just as a type of legal activity side by side with ijtihād, or as “legal
scaffolding,” as Jackson would describe it, but to use Kelsen’s terminology,
as the Grundnorm on which the whole legal edifice rests:

The basic principle is that the opinion of another may not be ac-
cepted without proof, except in cases of necessity. You have made
this case of necessity your basic capital.” (Argument 65)

It has also been suggested by some scholars that the discourse on taqlīd
was part of an attempt by Muslim jurists to employ the methodology of
uṣūl al-fiqh (jurisprudence) to conceal the inherent subjectivity of legal in-
terpretation, while securing those legal outcomes that the jurists them-
selves deemed preferable. For even while advocating imitation of the doc-
trines of his Imām, a muqallid jurist could make a finding of fact that
would allow his Imām’s doctrines not to be applied to the facts before him
without actually challenging those doctrines as such.37 One example of
this approach can be found in a series of fatāwā issued by Ashraf ʿAlī
Thānwī and other Deobandī ʿulamāʾ in the early twentieth century. The
problem they faced was that Ḥanafī law required wives whose husbands
had deserted them to wait for almost 100 years before they could have
their marriages dissolved by judicial decree. Some Ḥanafī muftīs had
therefore begun to advise such women to circumvent the strict Ḥanafī
doctrine by committing apostasy, which, under Ḥanafī, law automatically
nullified their marriages. Having freed themselves of their husbands,
these women could then immediately return to Islam by proclaiming the
declaration of faith (the Ḥanafī punishment of apostasy could not be ap-
plied to the wives in this case, because it had been outlawed by colonial
law). In response to this situation, Thānwī and other Deobandīs issued
fatāwā requiring Ḥanafīs to adopt the opinion of the Mālikī school on the
judicial dissolution of marriage, which allowed women in such circum-
stances to obtain a judicial dissolution within four years. But even as they
transformed the prevailing opinion of their school, the Deobandī scholars
presented the adoption of the Mālikī opinion as something that did not
make them mujtahids. The official fatwā of the Ḥanafī school on the
 Introduction 13

matter was likewise never renounced as incorrect law. Rather, a particular

factual situation was presented in terms that made the application of the
Ḥanafī opinion to it unfeasible.38
In cases such as this, taqlīd is clearly working as a legal fiction that
allows jurists to work substantial change in the law while keeping alive
the myth that the law is unchanging and consistent.39 But to what extent
were the scholars who engaged in this legal fiction aware of the fact?
Perhaps the greatest proponent of the view that muqallid scholars delib-
erately manipulated the concept of taqlīd to suit their agendas was the
late Orientalist Norman Calder, who was considered one of the foremost
authorities on the subject of taqlīd and wrote an article on the subject in
the Encyclopaedia of Islam.40 Calder repeatedly referred to the deliberate
“manipulation” of hermeneutical techniques and Prophetic traditions by
later scholars to support their juristic opinions.41 Using the rhetoric of
taqlīd was, for Calder, part of this manipulation. While Hallaq had sug-
gested that many muqallid jurists were confused by the various ways in
which terms like ijtihād and taqlīd were being used, Calder countered
that, “the majority of scholars were not confused; they knew how to ma-
nipulate and serve the tradition of discourse which had constituted their
training and their intellectual and literary tools.”42 According to Calder,
then, learning the rhetoric of taqlīd was an integral part of the discipline
of uṣūl by which scholars engaged in mass deception, attempting to por-
tray the law as an unchanging and objective discipline, when it was not
so.43 On this issue, Orientalist scholars, following their Muslim counter-
parts, basically divide into two camps: Some, such as Jackson, argue that
even when muqallid scholars employ the techniques of ūṣul al-fiqh to
derive law from scripture directly, their activities should be termed taqlīd
unless the muqallid scholars in question actually claim that they are
basing their opinions on the application of ūṣul al-fiqh to scripture.44 On
the other hand, scholars such as Hallaq argue that one ought to refer to
the juristic activities of muqallid jurists as ijtihād, which they were in ev-
erything but name.45
Clearly, this debate has huge implications for our understanding of the
role of uṣūl al-fiqh in Islamic legal reasoning. Accepting the claim that
muqallid scholars used, and continue to use, uṣūl as a discipline through
which they justified their own legal and political preferences means that
the purpose of uṣūl is not to facilitate linguistic interpretation and princi-
ples-based legal reasoning but to justify the legal and political preferences
of jurists. Therefore, uṣūl plays little role in actually developing substantive
14 on taqlīd

law, and it has little to teach students, beyond the art of concealing their
subjective political preferences.46 According to this view uṣūl should be
thought of as a science of justification or a form of intellectual play—or
just something that must be studied as a religious obligation.47 There is
some evidence to support this view. Uṣūl begins to look very much like a
science of justification, when we consider the work of muqallid scholars
such as the famous Ḥanafī-Muʿtazilī Abū l-Ḥasan al-Karkhī (d. 340/952),
who claimed that any verse of the Qurʾan or any ḥadīth that went against
his school would be held to be abrogated or would be set aside as the less
preferred view.48 In this view, it is clear that the purpose of uṣūl is not just
to discover or derive rulings from scripture but to justify the rulings of
one’s own school. The same point is made much more explicitly by
Kīrānwī, in his polemical refutation of Ibn al-Qayyim’s essay on taqlīd, in
which he states that a muqallid can never admit that his madhhab is weak,
because analyzing the strength and weakness of different opinions is the
task of the mujtahid. The task of the muqallid, therefore, would be to use
uṣūl to establish the superiority of his school, a task Kīrānwī and his fellow
Deobandī collaborators perform with great skill.49
On the other hand, for critics of taqlīd such as Ibn al-Qayyim, uṣūl
played a vital role in giving Muslims the tools needed to deduce law from
scripture, thus keeping scripture alive as a source of law for successive
generations of Muslims. They were thus critical of muqallid scholars who
used uṣūl merely to defend the opinions of their schools, as we shall see
later.50 Al-Dhahabī, another critic of rigid taqlīd, asks sarcastically why
muqallids continue to engage in the study of uṣūl al-fiqh, which was benefi-
cial only to someone engaged in ijtihād, which muqallid jurists held they
were not.51

Taqlı-d and the Rule of Law

It has also been argued that taqlīd represents the triumph of the ideal of
the rule of law over the ideal of judicial discretion, by replacing the sub-
jective conscience of the mujtahid with the group sensibility of the
school.52 Another account of taqlīd argues that the regime of taqlīd en-
sured that all the schools were guaranteed respect for their opinions by
the state and that no one madhhab would dominate all others. The madh-
hab thus forms the basic “constitutional unit” through which the indi-
vidual rights and liberties of those belonging to politically marginalized
schools are protected.53
 Introduction 15

It is true that the regime of taqlīd provided mechanisms for reducing

the potential for tyranny that it fostered in the first place. For the problem
of how to protect politically marginalized schools only arises when a par-
ticular madhhab has gained political or legal prominence and then seeks
to institutionalize its own taqlīd, while marginalizing other schools. Only
in a regime of taqlīd, in which judges and legal officials feel bound to
uphold the opinions of their own schools, does the danger of domination
by one such school become a possibility.
This is not to deny that the regime of ijtihād—in which a qāḍī had the
responsibility of carrying out ijtihād for himself—had the potential to
foster its own kind of tyranny. It is precisely because of their recognition
of the possibility of such an outcome that scholars writing under the
regime of ijtihād not only explicitly instructed qāḍīs to leave their own
school when they found another Imām’s rule to be more correct but also
spoke against a rigid system of judicial precedent that would bind judges
to the opinions of their predecessors or contemporaries. Instead, judges
were encouraged to take into account the specifics of the case before them,
in order to achieve a substantially just outcome in each case.
Thus, while Professor Jackson is undoubtedly right to draw attention
to the ways in which the outstanding scholar al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285) at-
tempted to present a vision of taqlīd that would make it a bulwark against
tyranny, defined by Jackson as “the tendency to appropriate law or the
authority that backs it to the end of making false or mistaken claims of
authority,” it is by no means certain that al-Qarāfī’s sophisticated defini-
tion of taqlīd was the one eventually accepted by most muqallid scholars.54
Indeed, those scholars who criticize rigid taqlīd, such as Ibn al-Qayyim, do
so precisely because in their view, it allows “false or mistaken claims of
authority” to be made for views that ought not to have any such authority.
For traditionalist critics of taqlīd in all four schools of law and beyond, it is
scripture alone, as understood by the Prophet and his Companions, that
is the standard by which the authoritativeness of any claim of authority
can be judged. By contrast, as Jackson shows, jurists under the regime of
taqlīd surreptitiously carried out ijtihād “disguised” as taqlīd in order to
project their own view back in time, in order to render good faith chal-
lenges to them more difficult.55 Furthermore, as Jackson points out, under
muqallid jurists, jurisprudential doctrines such as ijmāʿ (consensus) would
be reduced to a fiction perpetuated by muqallid scholars to bolster their
own opinions. This explains why scholars such as Ibn al-Qayyim railed
against such false claims of authority, which to them amounted to a form
16 on taqlīd

of tyranny by muqallid scholars to further their own views. They simply

refused to celebrate a rule of law built on such noble lies.
Moreover, the idea of protecting liberty by establishing the freedom of
legal schools from review by an external authority is one that could itself
be abused by the executive branch of government for its own ends. For in
a situation where the legal opinions of the schools are protected and
cannot be displaced by outsiders and where judges of a madhhab are
bound to uphold its opinions in public, a shrewd ruler would be tempted
to seek justification for his tyrannical measures in the legal doctrines of a
particular madhhab and thereby bestow on such measures the level of
protection and freedom from external legal review enjoyed by the legal
schools themselves. Paradoxically, governments would, under this system,
have a greater incentive to involve themselves in the previously off-limits
world of the legal schools than they would in the regime of ijtihād, where
a madhhab is not worth co-opting, because its legal opinions are not pro-
tected from judicial review and therefore cannot bestow much protection
on the executive. The process of state co-option of the madhhab arguably
reached its apogee in the Ottoman period, by the end of which the Ḥanafī
madhhab was, at least at an official level, no longer independent of the
government in any meaningful sense. Astute defenders of the regime of
taqlīd, such as al-Qarāfī, seem to have feared this and did their best to
counter such an outcome by insisting on the distinction between the ex-
ecutive and religious functions of government, limiting the role of the
madhhab to the latter. But even the efforts of an outstanding scholar such
as al-Qarāfī were unable to create a workable division of authority and re-
sponsibility between the ruler’s law and madhhab law, leaving open the
possibility of co-option of one by the other.
In the Nukat al-ẓarīfah of Akmal al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-
Ḥanafī (d. 786/1384), we can see clearly how the regime of taqlīd exerted
pressure on each madhhab to portray itself as the most accommodating of
executive discretion and as the one that would grant the greatest discre-
tion to the executive. The Nukat was a Ḥanafī apologetic work, which was
thoroughly refuted by the renowned Ḥanafī traditionalist, Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz
al-Ḥanafī (d. 792/1390?), in his al-ʾIttibāʿ. The Nukat, large sections of
which are reproduced in Ibn Abī l-ʿIzz’s text, attempts to convince the po-
litical authorities of the day to support the Ḥanafī madhhab. One of the
arguments presented to persuade them to do so is that the Ḥanafīs, unlike
the Shāfiʿīs, allow a sinful ruler to continue in his post.56 For Sunnīs such
as Ibn al-Qayyim, the worst possible form of adulteration of madhhab and
 Introduction 17

state would be one in which non-orthodox schools such as the Shīʿīs allied
themselves with the state and thereby gained protection for themselves
and their tyrannical protectors. The Fāṭimid Empire was the prime ex-
ample of this for Ibn al-Qayyim, but it was by no means the only one. In
Ibn al-Qayyim’s own time, the appeal of Shīʿism among the Mongols was
attributed in part to the efforts of the Shīʿī scholar al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1326),
whose work was criticized at great length by Ibn Taymiyyah in his Minhāj.
By giving a fatwā to the Mongol ruler Qayshan Gülük, circa 709/1309,
which allowed him to go back to his thrice-divorced wife—a fatwā that
none of the Sunnī muqallids at the time would issue—al-Ḥillī was sup-
posed to have created a soft spot for Shīʿism in the ruler’s heart. It is sig-
nificant that both Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim actually opposed the
majority Sunnī opinion on the issue of the triple divorce. For them, the
refusal of the Sunnī scholars to abandon taqlīd was therefore creating an
unwholesome alliance between a corrupted religion and a corrupted po-
litical authority.
The potential for tyranny present in a state-madhhab alliance is fully
and startlingly expressed in the writings of fundamentalists such as the
Pakistani founder of the Jamāt-e Islāmī, Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, who justifies
his stance that the state can impose one madhhab on the population by
drawing on the example of the Ottoman Empire, which imposed Ḥanafism
as the state madhhab. Mawdūdī’s argument is that, because the views held
by the established schools are by definition orthodox, there can be no
grounds for objecting to them, if a state were to impose them at an official
level.57 For both Mawdūdī and the defenders of the regime of taqlīd, the
madhhab’s views need not be subjected to a further test of legitimacy.
While opposed to rigid taqlīd in his other writings, here Mawdūdī’s views
seem similar to those held by defenders of the regime of taqlīd, who
argued that a muqallid had only to discover what his Imām’s rule was and
could ignore the question of what actually constituted God’s rule for the
legal problem facing him.58 This is precisely the stance objected to by
those scholars of the classical period who criticized rigid taqlīd. For them,
all authority had to be subject to the test of compatibility with scripture.
Any authority or law, religious or secular, that was not justified by scrip-
ture was not law but tyranny. For these critics, the problem with the regime
of taqlīd was that it sought to immunize itself from being challenged for
its conformity to scripture, which for these scholars was the sole and thus
ultimate source of authority and legitimacy in Islam. To refuse to refer all
authority to the test of compatibility with scripture would mean allowing
18 on taqlīd

non-scriptural—and therefore (in the Muslim view) tyrannical—views to

be treated in exactly the same way as those for which such scriptural proof
was available.

Taqlı-d as Authority
Some recent discussions of taqlīd, such as those of Haim Gerber, have
argued against calling it “imitation” of the doctrines of past authorities on
the grounds that taqlīd involves accepting the intellectual authority of an-
other jurist and is therefore distinct from imitation.59 If this view is cor-
rect, it is difficult to reconcile with the account of taqlīd as presented by
one of the most astute writers ever to address the subject, al-Qarāfī. In
Jackson’s summary of al-Qarāfī’s thought, it is clear that for the latter,
taqlīd is certainly not just the acceptance of someone else’s intellectual
authority. Rather, the muqallid scholar accepts that his knowledge and un-
derstanding of uṣūl matches that of the eponym, and that it might even be
greater than his.60 Taqlīd, then, is simply the process of acquiring some
necessary authority—not necessarily intellectual—that could act as the
force behind the law.
While jurists in the regime of ijtihād would be able to locate the author-
ity of the law in its content, those in the regime of taqlīd would find it
necessary to locate such authority elsewhere: in the person of an individ-
ual jurist of the past, or in a school, either of which could be used to vali-
date the legal opinions of a muqallid scholar. The muqallid scholar could
not, however, acknowledge this fact, because doing so would expose the
extent to which the law was subject to constant change and innovation,
thus destroying the legitimacy it claimed by virtue of being unchanging
and consistent.61
The suggestion that legal opinions in the regime of taqlīd derive their
authority not from the content of the law but from the legal and scholarly
tradition to which the muqallid scholar belongs is therefore problematic
for several reasons. First, such a neat division between authority and con-
tent in Islamic law is untenable, for the authority of any legal opinion
continues to be determined in part by the extent to which its content is
based on scripture. It is for this reason that muqallid scholars continued
to challenge both the authority and the content of scholarly opinions by
offering different interpretations of scriptural proofs relied on by their
opponents or dismissing the aḥādīth relied on by the latter as inauthen-
tic.62 The content of the law thus continued to function as a mark of its
 Introduction 19

authority, even in the regime of taqlīd, as muqallid scholars continued to

present the rulings of their Imāms as more authoritative because the sub-
stance of their rulings matched the aḥādīth. This is the case, for example,
in the attack of Ibn al-Labbād (ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī, d. 629/1231)
against al-Shāfiʿī and in the defense of Abū Ḥanīfah in the Iʿlāʾ al-sunan.63
Both works aim to show that it is the content of Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfah’s
doctrines—in particular their being in harmony with scripture—that
makes them more worthy of being followed and bestows more authority
on them.
Presenting the regime of taqlīd as a system in which the authority of a
legal opinion derives not from its content but from its place in a particular
legal tradition also creates a misleading dichotomy between a regime of
taqlīd based on tradition and authority and a regime of ijtihād that appears
to lack these qualities. In fact, authority and tradition are always among
the core features of any legal culture, as seen in the works of both tradi-
tionalist Salafī critics of taqlīd and their opponents.64 The real question,
then, is, why should the search for authority, which is an animating fea-
ture of almost every legal culture, so often take the form of taqlīd in Islam?
Why is it that the authority of scripture, which seems to suffice for some
scholars, proves insufficient for muqallid scholars in the regime of taqlīd,
even as muqallid scholars such as al-Qarāfī assert that muqallids and muj-
tahids are absolutely equal in their mastery of the interpretive sciences.65
It is, after all, precisely their opponents’ concept of authority that the crit-
ics of rigid taqlīd are denouncing, when they criticize dicta that the madh-
hab of the Imām is like the Qurʾan for his followers—a statement attrib-
uted to Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī (d. 643/1245) which is roundly
condemned by Ibn Qayyim.66 Instead, Ibn al-Qayyim argues that a muftī
should mention the scriptural evidence for his fatwā—even to the extent
of trying to incorporate words used in scripture in his fatwā—precisely to
emphasize the latter’s authority.67
The trend of conflating taqlīd with tradition and with Islam itself is
perhaps most visible in the work of the late Norman Calder. In his work
on Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s Chaplets on the Mufti’s Task, Calder explicitly contrasts the
Islamic legal tradition with the Protestant legal vision of the English Res-
toration poet John Dryden and confidently asserts that Islam “was other-
wise.”68 He sees similarities between Dryden’s concepts of “reasonable
faith” and his “everyman’s direct approach to scripture,” and the reformist
thought of Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905) and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī
(d. 1897). The legal vision of all three, he maintains, is opposed to the
20 on taqlīd

justified acknowledgment of authority, the commitment to tradition and

the doctrine of taqlīd that is the hallmark of Islamic legal practice. In
Islam, he says, neither scripture nor common sense, but only the interpre-
tations of established figures, carried authority. Scripture, he asserts, did
not speak itself.69 The fact that, despite Calder’s confident assertions, the
following essay of Ibn al-Qayyim, as well as works by renowned scholars
such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), Ibn Baṭṭah (d. 387/997), Ibn Ḥazm
(d. 456/1064), and al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463/1071), all refer to “speak-
ing scripture” (kitāb nāṭiq) alerts us to the common mistake of transposing
our knowledge of one school (in Calder’s case, the Ḥanafī), to the whole
Islamic tradition.70
Scholars such as those mentioned above criticized rigid taqlīd precisely
because they saw it as undermining the primary source of authority in
Islam—scripture. The debate on taqlīd, then, is not about authority versus
the lack of authority but about how certain sources of authority come to be
valued as others are devalued.71 For instance, Ibn al-Qayyim repeatedly
refers to the Companions and their students living in various centers of
learning throughout the early Islamic state as individuals whose status as
legal authorities is accepted across sectarian lines.72 Recent studies of
early ḥadīth collections, such as that by Lucas on the Muṣannaf of Ibn Abī
Shaybah, also suggest that the early ahl al-ḥadīth and ahl al-rāʾy were in
agreement over the identity of the individuals who were considered to be
legal authorities.73 Critics of Ibn al-Qayyim’s arguments on taqlīd seldom
miss an opportunity to accuse him and his fellow Salafīs of imitating ear-
lier authorities.74 How then, does there come to be disagreement about the
extent to which the opinions of these authorities are authoritative? Why is
it that early jurists, such as the eponyms of the madhhabs’ followers, can
be celebrated for their legal ingenuity and novelty, while later ones are
seen as suspect, unless they derive their opinions by reference to past au-
thorities? These questions can only be answered if we explore the way the
authority of the madhhab is constructed.

Seeking Authority for the Madhhab

To explain adequately the rise and functioning of the regime of taqlīd, we
have to explain how different modes of authority emerge and develop as
the regime of ijtihād transforms into the regime of taqlīd. The shift from a
system in which interaction with revelation was seen as an essential fea-
ture of a jurist’s work to one in which it was not was a radical one, and this
 Introduction 21

transformation occurred at the same time as other major transitions in

Islamic culture, particularly the rise of popular Sufism. As Makdisi has
argued, one of the ways in which the new regime of taqlīd compensated for
the diminished role of scripture in legal reasoning was by developing a cult
of piety around the figure of the eponym and the madhhab itself. For giving
up the blessing of interacting with scripture, a muqallid was compensated
with the blessings of being associated with the madhhab of his eponym.75
In many cases, the madhhab began to take on some of the features of the
developed Sufi orders (ṭuruq, sing. ṭarīqah), becoming a self-contained tra-
ditional and pietistic tradition. This happened while the concept of piety
itself was being contested between those who argued for strict adherence
to the Sunnah and the practices of the salaf (pious forefathers) and those
who celebrated the extraordinary and rigorous feats of worship and re-
ported miracles of later figures of authority, which, for them, provided the
firmest link with the spirituality of the Prophet. Extraordinary spiritual
feats were thus also associated with the founding Imāms of the schools of
law just as they were with major saints and the founders of Sufi orders.
With the entrenchment of the regime of taqlīd, scriptural, theological,
and eschatological arguments and proofs in favor of taqlīd came to wield as
much influence as jurisprudential arguments. These arguments continue
to be seen in contemporary debates on the topic in the Muslim world. The
change in the nature of the argument not only suggests a transformation
in the way scripture is understood, it also explains why those Muslim schol-
ars who dared to challenge the taqlīd practiced by their peers were perse-
cuted so severely by the latter. For the critics of taqlīd were challenging not
just an abstract jurisprudential doctrine but a Weltanschauung, one that
regarded ongoing ijtihād as impious and sinful. Ibn al-Qayyim is clear
about what he believes to be the implications of the belief of the muqallid
scholars that there had been no mujtahids since the days of the Imāms:

According to them, it is acceptable for there to be a time when the

earth is devoid of those who stand on the path of God with evi-
dence, and for it to be empty of those who speak on the basis of
knowledge. They regard it as impermissible for anyone after that
time to look to the Book of God or the Sunnah for the purpose of
acquiring rulings from them. Nor do they deem it permissible for
one to judge and render verdicts based directly on what is in the
Qurʾan and Sunnah, unless this corresponds to the opinion of the
principal and the one he imitates.
22 on taqlīd

We must understand this in order to understand the ferocity of the debate

on taqlīd and appreciate the significance of Islamic revivalist thought that
condemned taqlīd.76
To get some sense of the intensity of the debate and the way madhhab
authority is constructed, let us consider the introductory section of the
Radd al-muḥtār of Ibn ʿĀbidīn, which outlines the basic principles on
which the rest of this most authoritative of Ḥanafī works rests. Taqlīd fig-
ures prominently as one of those basic principles, and, in addition to ex-
plaining the superstructure of the Ḥanafī school, the author draws on
several earlier Ḥanafī authorities to build his case for the authority of the
Ḥanafī madhhab. Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s account demonstrates vividly how the au-
thority of the madhhab was developed and sustained against its critics in
later Islamic legal history. The ferocity of the debates on this issue can be
gauged by Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s discussion of poetic verses attributed to the cele-
brated scholar ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak (d. 181/797) by early Ḥanafī au-
thorities. At the end of the poem comes a curse on anyone who rejects the
sayings of Abū Ḥanīfah: “May Our Lord curse, by an amount equaling the
number of grains of sand in the world / The one who rejects the opinion
of Abū Ḥanīfah” (Fa laʿnat rabbina aʿdād raml/ʿAlā man radd qawl
Abī Ḥanīfah).77 The famous dictum of al-Karkhī, the Muʿtazilī-Ḥanafī
jurist, that every verse of the Qurʾan and every ḥadīth disagreeing with the
interpretation of the Ḥanafīs would have to reinterpreted or would be con-
sidered abrogated, is also cited at the outset.78
As stated earlier, the authority of the eponym of a madhhab was con-
structed in ways that also legitimized his school. Hurvitz has described the
cult of piety that developed around the figure of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and
contributed to the construction of his school.79 Al-Shāfiʿī’s descent from the
Quraysh, the clan of the Prophet, played a great role in developing his au-
thority. His closeness to the Prophet is reported by madhhab authorities to
be so great that, like the Prophet, he suffered more than ordinary believers
during his illness.80 Outstanding scholars such as al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277–
1278) and Ibn Qudāmah (d. 620/1223) do not see themselves simply as
heirs of the intellectual tradition of their Imāms, they also believe them-
selves to be part of a spiritual chain going back to the founders of the
schools. Al-Nawawī asks God to bless him on account of his affiliation with
al-Shāfiʿī.81 Ibn Qudāmah alludes to the blessing (tabarruk) he hopes to
gain from being associated with Ibn Ḥanbal and also from commenting on
a Ḥanbalī text as renowned as the Mukhtaṣar of al-Khiraqī (d. 334/945).82
Abū Isḥāq al-Shirāzī (d. 476/1083) and other scholars frequently report
 Introduction 23

seeing the Prophet in dreams in which he approves of their Imāms and

condemns others (in al-Shirāzī’s case, Abū Ḥanīfah’s use of rāʾy is con-
demned by the Prophet). Various dream reports also have Abū Ḥanīfah
assuring people that they would enter paradise.
Madhhab authority was also bolstered by the creation of a religious
figure of knowledge and authority, the eponym, with his own disciples
(aṣḥāb), much like the Prophet and his Companions.83 At the same time,
another aspect of the construction of scholarly and madhhab authority,
particularly visible in the case of the Ḥanafī school, which has historically
been the most inclined to insist on taqlīd, involved constructing an image
of the eponym and his followers that was influenced by contemporary
developments in Sufism. After a certain date, arguments in support of
taqlīd involved the skillful appropriation of aspects of the developing Sufi
tradition, as can be seen in the works of authors such as al-Shaʿrānī
(d. 973/1565), Ibn ʿAbidīn, and ʿUthmānī, whose arguments in favor of
Abū Ḥanīfah exemplify this trend. Likewise, scholars who criticized rigid
taqlīd were often thereby also criticizing what they regarded as the cults of
personality that had become a hallmark of popular Sufism in their days,
which had been appropriated by the legal schools.
In literature that uses a Sufi phenomenology to reinforce the authority
of the madhhab, both the mujtahid and the Sufi shaykh come to be seen as
“rarer than red sulphur.” This metaphor, common among Sufis, bemoans
not only lost knowledge but also the lost qualities of spiritual insight and
virtue embodied in the eponyms. In the absence of the eponym and indi-
viduals like him who possess these qualities, it becomes essential to hold
on to their transferred authority as represented by those who belonged to
their “schools,” whether in law or Sufism—those who, by following their
Imām, would rekindle and enliven the dormant spirituality and religiosity
of their followers. Recreating that missing spirituality in later generations
demanded strict conformity to the practices of deceased figures around
whom a cult of spirituality and piety had developed, for they were regarded
as having ascended heights of piety that were impossible to reach for those
coming later. Ibn ʿAqīl (d. 513/1119), the renowned Ḥanbalī jurist, records
the argument of his opponents, who insist that, even if people meeting the
prerequisite of ijtihād can be found in their time, they are corrupted by
their sins, implying that the early mujtahids themselves were above that.84
Attitudes like this would prompt al-Ṣanʿānī to exclaim that the muqallids
exalted earlier scholars to such an extent that they began to think of them
as creatures who were “not made of the essence of clay” (annahum ghayr
24 on taqlīd

makhlūqīn min ṣulālah min ṭīn).85 Al-Ṣanʿānī’s choice of words, drawing on

the Qurʾanic account of the creation of all men from clay (ṣulālah min ṭīn,
Q., al-Muʾminūn, 23:12), indicates the strong disapproval this glorification
of mere mortals would evoke in some scholars, for whom such exaltation
of men “made of the essence of clay” would come dangerously close to an
elevation of man above the station in which God had placed him.
Law schools also appropriated from Sufism the idea of the inner or
intuitive knowledge of the eponyms and past mujtahids. Thus, in later
apologetic works on taqlīd, what distinguishes the earlier generations of
scholars is their dhawq (intuition) or kashf (unveiling of the truth), both
heavily charged Sufi terms used repeatedly by ʿUthmānī, in his Iʿlāʾ al-
sunan, to describe the process of ijtihād carried out by a mujtahid. The art
or science of ijtihād was not, in this view, something to be learned but
rather to be experienced in the way divine gnosis is experienced in Sufi
thought. By the same logic, anyone who disagreed with the ijtihād of a
mujtahid on rational grounds could be dismissed easily, because, whatever
his level of knowledge, he could not argue against the dhawq of the
eponym. Using dhawq and kashf as arguments for the veracity of a mujta-
hid’s opinion was, however, a double-edged sword. Some Ḥanafī critics of
rigid taqlīd would use the same techniques to “prove” that taqlīd of one
madhhab was not obligatory, claiming that this was a truth that had been
“unveiled” to them.86
The process of constructing an eponym’s mystic and spiritual authority
can be seen, once again, in the opening section of the Radd al-muḥtār,
which is significant precisely because it brings together several layers of
Ḥanafī scholarship devoted to a discussion of the authority of the Ḥanafī
school and its eponym. In this section, Abū Ḥanīfah’s spiritual authority
is valued as much as, if not more than, his legal acumen, and it is clearly
the meta-principle that shapes the main work, which is concerned with
the presentation, elucidation, and justification of Ḥanafī opinions. Several
reports are cited, in which Abū Ḥanīfah’s disciples mention seeing him in
the highest ranks of paradise in their dreams. Combining the authority of
a religious scholar and a gnostic, Abū Ḥanīfah is reported to have seen
God 100 times in his dreams, a feat seldom accomplished by even the
most adept mystics. He is also reported to have been taught the words to
a religious formula that, if recited, will save people from divine punish-
ment. Even Abū Ḥanīfah’s worship is presented in unmistakably mystical
terms. During his last pilgrimage to Mecca, he is reported to have entered
the Kaʿbah and prayed a two-unit prayer, in which he recited one half of
 Introduction 25

the Qurʾan while standing on his right foot alone, and the other half while
standing on his left foot, after which he claimed to have achieved gnosis
(maʿrifah). The connection between his mystic power and his legal status
is solidified when we learn that, as a result of his extraordinary feats of
worship, he received divine assurance that he and those who followed his
school would be forgiven.87 Abū Ḥanīfah’s status as a mystic saint is ce-
mented by the report that al-Shāfiʿī himself would pray at Abū Ḥanīfah’s
grave when he wanted his prayers to be answered.88 Not only does this
report show the way in which muqallid scholars used Sufi practices, such
as offering prayer at the burial places of saints, to consolidate the authority
of their own schools, it also neatly establishes a hierarchy between the two
eponyms whose schools developed such an intense rivalry over time.
Other Ḥanafīs had gone so far as to report aḥādīth in which the Prophet
himself predicted that there would be in his community a man known as
Muḥammad b. Idrīs (i.e., al-Shafiʿī), who would be more harmful to it than
the Devil and that there would be a man in his community called Abū
Ḥanīfah, who would be its light.89
The importance of such reports should not be underestimated. In the
course of his lengthy refutation of Ibn al-Qayyim’s essay, the Deobandī
scholar Kīrānwī argues that Ibn al-Qayyim is wrong in asserting that the
very act of a muqallid choosing the Imām and school to which he sub-
scribes involves a kind of ijtihād. Kīrānwī argues that, unlike issues of
substantive law (furūʿ), in which specific evidence and ijtihād are required
before one can act on a scholarly opinion, one could choose one’s Imām
not on the basis of any evidence but merely on the basis of an “inclination
of one’s heart.” Similarly, a muqallid could defend his Imām not on the
basis of evidence but on the basis of being charitable towards the latter,
again without carrying out any ijtihād himself.90 The effect of reports
such as those mentioned by Ibn ʿĀbidīn and his Ḥanafī predecessors in
procuring an “inclination of the heart” and “charitableness” towards one’s
Imām would be considerable, especially in the case of the layman who
could not be expected to appreciate the subtle legal differences between
the schools but who could certainly grasp the significance of reports such
as those related above. In fact, reports such as these would reinforce the
ties of loyalty that bound large numbers of ordinary people to a school,
such ties being perhaps the greatest resource any school could have.91
The selection of one’s Imām on such grounds is exactly what leads critics
of taqlīd such as al-Ṣanʿānī to dismiss such choices as a form of caprice
(shahwah).92 Ibn al-Qayyim also points out that such accounts in support
26 on taqlīd

of particular eponyms lose their potency once nearly all the schools de-
velop them to bolster the authority of their own Imāms:

If every sect from the imitators argues for the primacy of its princi-
pal for any possible reason such as his belonging to an earlier time,
his asceticism and piety, his meeting with venerable and ordinary
scholars whom those after him could not meet, or the large number
of his followers who are not rivaled by anyone else, another group
is able to argue for the primacy of their principal with these same
arguments—or similar ones—or those even better. (Argument 81)

Acknowledging the way Sufi discourse was used to promote taqlīd does
not mean that all, or even most, scholars in the regime of taqlīd actively
subscribed to a Sufi worldview in which saints guaranteed one’s entry to
heaven or praying at the graves of dead saints was encouraged. The fact
that muqallid scholars employed Sufi metaphors to construct the authority
of their eponyms and schools probably represents their recognition of the
popular appeal of Sufism and their attempts to present their own tradition
in terms that would transcend their own jurisprudential world and find
resonances in Sufi circles.93 This would explain the muqallid scholars’ con-
tinued celebration of the unique contribution of their eponyms as juris-
prudents who also happened to be masters of Sufism, and not as Sufis
who also happened to be masters of jurisprudence.
At the same time, we can see that traditionalists amongst the Ḥanbalīs
and others generally avoided constructing the authority of their scholars
by using the discourse of mystical Sufism. On the contrary, they saw the
authority of their scholars as lying in the fact that they submitted to the
intellectual authority of the Prophet, in comparison to whose intellect
the intellect of the whole of humanity (including those scholars whose
legal acumen was so celebrated by muqallid jurists) was merely “a speck
of dust.” This argument was widespread in early traditionalist circles,
and Wahb b. Munabbih (d. 110/728?) reports as many as seventy of his
teachers using it.94 In addition to relying heavily on the intellectual au-
thority of the Prophet, traditionalists cultivated the idea that piety con-
sisted of close adherence to his word.95 This principle meant measuring
the authority of a scholar not on the basis of the novelty of his legal ap-
proach nor on the basis of how often he could be shown to be correct in
matters of ikhtilāf but on whether he had the correct approach to legal
problems, that is, by searching for answers in the aḥādīth, a test which
 Introduction 27

the traditionalist ahl al-ḥadīth were bound to pass and their rivals were
bound to fail.96 In fact, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal was himself reported to have
advised people to obtain verdicts from the ahl al-ḥadīth rather than the
ahl al-rāʾy even if the former were not very knowledgeable, due to the
soundness of their approach.97 In his essay on taqlīd, Ibn al-Qayyim also
points out the strength of the methodology of the ahl al-ḥadīth, which he
credits for the relative lack of dissension in their ranks:

This is why you will find that the people who have the least dis-
agreement among themselves are the people of the Sunnah and
ḥadīth. There is not, in the whole world, a faction more in harmony
and with lesser disagreement in their midst than them because
they base themselves on this principle. The more a sect is removed
from the ḥadīth, the greater and more severe is the disagreement in
their midst. (Argument 51)

The above reveals once again that, in the debate on taqlīd, it is not just two
legal theories that are competing for acceptance but two competing views
on how to recapture the piety, knowledge, and authority of the Prophet—
two competing religiosities. This also explains the Salafī opposition to rigid
taqlīd. Classical Salafīs such as al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), Ibn Taymiyyah,
and al-Ṣanʿānī believed that their contemporaries’ understanding of rigid
taqlīd went beyond the practice and beliefs of the Prophet and the early
generations (including especially the Companions). This made it both
dangerous and misguided, a point we shall return to later.98 Their criti-
cism of rigid taqlīd was thus based on the same arguments that they used
to condemn speculative theology (kalām) and extremist Sufis. It is for this
reason that traditionalists such as Ibn Taymiyyah, unlike the anti-taqlīd
Ḥanafī scholars, never base their arguments on kashf, preferring to rely
instead on scriptural or rational arguments.
As we have seen, a crucial ingredient of the construction of the extraor-
dinary spiritual authority of the eponym was the notion that such spiritual
authority disappeared from the world as time progressed and was replaced
by immorality and sinfulness. Many defenders of taqlīd based their argu-
ments on aḥādīth that spoke of the spread of corruption and the disap-
pearance of knowledge, as the end of the world drew near.99 This made it
preferable to rely on authorities of the past. In light of these traditions,
they argued, it was unseemly and impious for later authorities to chal-
lenge the views of earlier ones.
28 on taqlīd

The critics of rigid taqlīd, such as Ibn al-Qayyim and al-Ṣanʿānī, did not
altogether reject the idea of worsening times, which had substantial sup-
port in the ḥadīth literature. Instead, they argued that disagreeing with
earlier scholars did not mean that one believed oneself to be superior to
them in rank nor that one would be rewarded as much for his ijtihād as
they were for theirs.100 Rather, both early and late scholars could disagree
with each other and with their predecessors on the basis of scriptural
proof, without holding themselves to be superior to their opponents.101
Alongside this, critics of rigid taqlīd placed great importance on the exis-
tence of aḥādīth that spoke of the victorious group in the ummah (Muslim
community) that would continue to remain firm on the truth, and the mu-
jaddid who would revive Islam at the turn of each century.102 The victorious
community and the mujaddid would fight innovations and non-scriptural
influences that had crept into the religion and would act as the “proof of
God on earth.”103 From the popular traditionalist identification of ʿUmar
b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal as possible mujaddids, we
can see that the mujaddid tradition was understood, at least by traditional-
ists, as referring to individuals whose calls for renewal (tajdīd) emphasized
the authority of the Qurʾan and the Sunnah over taqlīd of previous authori-
ties. It was thus argued that the mujaddid must also be an absolute mujta-
hid. The frequently cited lists of mujaddids thus often include scholars
such as ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660/1262), who were renowned for their
criticism of the rigid taqlīd practiced by their contemporaries and for their
call to eschew scholarly and popular beliefs and practices not supported by
scripture. Ḥanbalī traditionalists, however, did not rely as much as their
Shāfiʿī counterparts on the mujaddid tradition, partly because, as a school,
they were generally the least inclined toward taqlīd in the first place and so
did not feel the need for a mujaddid figure to liberate them from rigid
taqlīd. Hodgson has correctly described the Ḥanbalī tradition as a radical
movement that challenged established authority on principle:

Hanbalism . . . remained a comprehensive and essentially radical

movement, which had elaborated its own fiqh in accordance with
its own principles, but whose leaders were often unwilling to ac-
knowledge the kind of taqlīd as provided the institutional security of
the other schools, and replaced the ijmāʿ tradition of the living com-
munity on principle. Ijtihād inquiry remained alive among the
Hanbalīs; each major teacher felt free to start afresh, according to
the needs of his own time to reform in a puritan direction.104
 Introduction 29

The Ḥanafīs, for their part, were just as comfortable employing eschato-
logical arguments in defense of their own positions on taqlīd. While other
schools saw in the return of the Messiah an opportunity to return to a
pristine form of Islam free of madhhab boundaries, the renowned Ḥanafī
scholar al-Haṣkafī’s (d. 1088/1677) assertion that the Messiah would be a
Ḥanafī muqallid (an assertion based on a mystical unveiling, or kashf ),
demonstrates the way in which almost all schools could use the same es-
chatological material to reinforce their own positions on taqlīd.105

Theological Rationale for Taqlı-d

Within the range of what might be termed non-jurisprudential argu-
ments for taqlīd, we need to pay special attention to the theological par-
adigm. Theological concerns were always crucially important in any
Islamic jurisprudential debate, and the debate on taqlīd was no excep-
tion.106 In fact, one of the most enduring battles in uṣūl al-fiqh was that
between traditionalists and kalām scholars who sought to develop Is-
lamic theology in light of Hellenistic philosophy and science. The pen-
etration of kalām scholars into the ranks of the scholars of uṣūl early in
the history of the discipline was something that traditionalists fought
against. In his insightful work on the theological significance of al-
Shāfiʿī’s uṣūl al-fiqh, Makdisi suggests that, after Shāfiʿī, one of the rea-
sons for the popularity of uṣūl as a field of study was the opportunity it
gave kalām theologians to practice their craft in the garb of traditional-
ism.107 The traditionalists, however, viewed uṣūl al-fiqh as an antidote to
kalām, and later traditionalists, particularly those of the Shāfiʿī school,
would go to great lengths to distinguish their uṣūl al-fiqh from those of
the kalām theologians, particularly the Ashʿarīs, who represented the
greatest threat to traditionalism.108
We can see theological concerns at the forefront of the debate on
taqlīd, as scholars argued over whether it was possible for an age to be
altogether devoid of mujtahids. Because it was agreed in principle that
carrying out ijtihād was a divine command, which could be fulfilled only
by mujtahids, jurisprudents found themselves involved in a theological
debate on whether God could issue an impossible command, to carry out
ijtihād, while depriving humanity of the mujtahids who would be required
to do so.109
More generally, the theological affiliations of certain scholars often
prompted them to promote or condemn certain conceptions of taqlīd and
30 on taqlīd

ijtihād. This can be seen in the legal works of Muʿtazilī scholars such as
Abū Ḥuṣayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044–1045) and ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1024),
which take an anti-taqlīd stance.110 Early Ḥanafīs such as al-Jaṣṣāṣ
(d. 370/980–981) also refuted taqlīd on theological grounds, arguing, in
broadly Muʿtazilī terms, for the obligation to use one’s own reason to
understand scripture.111 In fact, positions on taqlīd came to be so aligned
with positions in theology that that the renowned Ḥanafī scholar Ibn
ʿĀbidīn candidly refers to the “position of the ahl al-sunnah wa-l-jamāʿah”
(referring primarily to the Māturīdīs and Ashʿarīs) on taqlīd.112
In many cases, scholars were forced to adopt conflicting positions on
taqlīd because of their theological affiliations. Al-Māwardī’s (d. 450/1058)
theological leanings forced him to conclude that, because a Prophetic tradi-
tion that is not reported through numerous chains of narration (tawātur)
cannot generate positive knowledge, all such reports are to be followed by
way of taqlīd—this despite his general condemnation of taqlīd.113 Theological
considerations are responsible also for some of the more glaring tensions in
the Ashʿarī al-Subkī’s (d. 771/1370) biography of Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), whose
deathbed repentance of kalām al-Subkī is forced to recast as a retraction of
his legal ijtihād, in which he differed with the Shāfiʿī school.114 In reality, al-
Juwaynī’s condemnation of those who did not follow “the path of the salaf ”
could not have been a retraction of his legal independence from the Shāfiʿī
school, because following a school did not really prevent al-Juwaynī or al-
Subkī himself from disagreeing with the earlier scholars from the same
school.115 Al-Juwaynī’s retraction of kalām was, on the other hand, something
the Ashʿarī al-Subkī could not support. He thus presents al-Juwaynī as a pure
muqallid, who repented of his ijtihād. If we are to understand the topic of
taqlīd properly, it is crucial that we consider the theological dimension of the
debates surrounding it.116
The unity of the ummah and its protection from error were also theo-
logical factors that figured prominently in jurisprudential debates on
taqlīd. For muqallids, the unity of the ummah would be destroyed by people
being given the freedom to adopt novel positions on seemingly settled
questions of law. For critics of rigid taqlīd, there was ample proof of the
evil consequences of rigid taqlīd in reprehensible innovations such as the
establishment of a separate congregation for each of the four schools in
the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, not to mention fatāwā in which, for exam-
ple, the marriage of Ḥanafī women to Shāfiʿī men was analogized to a
marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men and therefore
 Introduction 31

declared prohibited.117 Even some broad-minded jurisprudents, such as

the great al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), had argued that a muqallid could not
pray behind an imām belonging to another school, if the latter’s prayer
would be invalid according to one’s own school.118 This was also one of the
arguments presented by Ibn al-Qayyim in his essay on taqlīd:

Certainly disagreement has arisen and worsened because of imita-

tion and its proponents. They are the ones who divided the religion
into factions, each one glorifying and turning to its principal and
condemning those who oppose him. They do not believe in the cor-
rectness of acting by the others’ views, as if the others belonged to
an entirely different community. They exert and outdo themselves
in refuting each other. They say, “Their books and our books differ,
as do their scholars and ours and their schools and ours.” All this
they have done despite the fact that there is one Prophet, one
Qurʾan, one religion and one God. (Argument 51)

Ibn ʿAqīl also argued that the idea that there were no more mujtahids fur-
ther damaged the notion of a divinely protected and unified ummah,
which reached authoritative consensus or ijmāʿ (because consensus can
only issue from the mujtahids of a particular age).119 For other scholars
critical of taqlīd, such as Ibn Taymiyyah and al-ʿIzz, who both issued ver-
dicts allowing prayers behind an imām from another school, the rulings
issued by muqallid scholars prohibiting such prayers went against the
theological imperative of keeping the ummah united. Such explicit theo-
logical reasoning was an essential part of the jurisprudential arguments
on taqlīd, and many scholars were motivated to write against taqlīd simply
because of their abhorrence for the dissension it caused in congregational
prayer.120 At the same time, those theological doctrines that united the
Sunnī community, such as their opposition to the Shīʿīs, were also used to
convince the community of the invalidity of particular stances on the issue
of taqlīd. The Ḥanafī traditionalist Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz would argue that, by se-
lecting individual scholars as their sources of authority, Sunnī muqallids
had started to act like the Shīʿīs, who had also arbitrarily chosen particular
Companions as the sources of all authority.121 Discussing taqlīd, Ibn al-
Qayyim also argues that the Sunnī position on the deference due to schol-
ars is distinct from that of the Shīʿīs and their extreme opponents, the
Nāṣibīs, whose opposition to the former made them belittle ʿAlī and refuse
32 on taqlīd

to give him his due.122 We can thus say that the influence of theological
principles on the institution of taqlīd was significant, as will be seen from
Ibn al-Qayyim’s discussion of the subject.123

Ashʿarı- Skepticism and Taqlı-d

The issue of theology is even more intricately linked with taqlīd than the
above account suggests. In his masterful study of the legal and political
thought of al-Qarāfī, one of the most outstanding scholars ever to write on
the topic of taqlīd, Professor Jackson demonstrates that al-Qarāfī was moti-
vated to defend the system of taqlīd because of his belief that the divine
origin of scripture imposed no limitation whatever on the range of its pos-
sible interpretations.124 Without any hope of arriving at an objectively cor-
rect interpretation of scripture, muqallid scholars could legitimately continue
to defend the opinions of their predecessors, which were as likely to be cor-
rect as those of their rivals.
This skepticism about the possibility of an objectively correct interpre-
tation of scripture was one of the hallmarks of late Ashʿarī theology. While
early Ashʿarīs such as al-Juwaynī (d. 478) had argued that only one out of
many conflicting juristic views could be correct, at least in matters of uṣūl,
many later Ashʿarīs such as al-Ghazālī tended to hold that, in matters of
speculative ijtihād, mujtahids who held mutually contradictory views were
all correct.125 The act of carrying out ijtihād thus bestowed a sort of im-
munity, both legal and spiritual, on the mujtahid and all those who imi-
tated him. Other Ashʿarīs, such as al-Qarāfī and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
(d. 606/1209), did not accept the doctrine of all mujtahids being correct,
but nevertheless held that disagreement among the mujtahids meant
that, generally, no objectively correct theological or legal view could be
identified without reference to established schools or scholars.126 Rāzī, for
instance, argued not only that it was impossible to find the solution to all
possible legal problems (which were potentially infinite) within scripture
(which was finite), but also that it was impossible to assert that scripture
had an objectively correct meaning. To do so would be to concede that
God intended to achieve certain objectives and purposes with His acts
and speech. However, the idea of God having aims and objectives had al-
ready been ruled out by Ashʿarī theology, as seen in the writings of al-
Rāzī, who in his renowned commentary on the Qurʾan, rejected the idea
that God’s actions (including His speech and His legislative commands
contained in the Qurʾan) could have an objective or purpose.127 Among
 Introduction 33

later Ashʿarīs, this belief fuelled a great deal of skepticism about the pos-
sibility of arriving at an objectively correct and straightforward interpreta-
tion of scripture. The Ashʿarī al-Subkī would claim that the denial of iden-
tifiable purposes in the divine law was the most popular view among the
scholars of kalām, as opposed to the jurists who, according to al-Subkī,
held the view that speaking of divine purposes in the law was valid.128
Even some Ḥanbalīs, despite their opposition to Ashʿarism, would come
close to holding al-Rāzī’s position.129
Rejecting the idea that there are authoritative, objectively verifiable in-
terpretations of scripture has profound effects on legal theory and juris-
prudence, not to mention theology.130 These effects are quite visible in the
works of some Ashʿarī scholars.131 For when Ashʿarī scholars such as al-
Qarāfī wrote on the subject of taqlīd, they did so partly under the influence
of al-Rāzī’s view that one could not speak of an objective purpose in scrip-
ture, and that one must therefore be skeptical about the possibility of pre-
ferring one of several competing scholarly inferences by referring to the
underlying rationale of scripture itself.132 Instead, muqallid scholars were
automatically driven to locate authority for their legal opinions outside of
scripture, for instance, in a madhhab or a super-mujtahid figure whose
spiritual authority silences his opponents and makes his opinions worthy
of imitation by later scholars. This explains, in part, why muqallid scholars
found it so convenient to embellish the spiritual authority of their ep-
onyms.133 Scholars such as Shaʿrānī, for instance, would employ Sufi ter-
minology to argue that each mujtahid has an intuition (dhawq) and a
novice (sālik, a term used for Sufi novice) who aspires to knowledge of the
sharīʿah, once he attains gnosis or maʿrifah, will see that all the mujtahids
are correct and that he may follow any of the schools that he desires.134
Similarly, scholars who rejected the idea of an objective meaning of scrip-
ture would try to justify their views with sources of authority such as con-
sensus, because the latter would remove the debate over the correct inter-
pretation of scripture by demonstrating that a particular interpretation
had been accepted as normative by all scholars. In this way, as Jackson
shows, muqallid scholars would often reduce ijmāʿ to the considered opin-
ion of their own school.135
Traditionalists such as Ibn al-Qayyim, however, insisted that revelation
was to be accepted according to its straightforward and objectively correct
meaning, and it was important for a scholar to strive to grasp that mean-
ing.136 They also affirmed the existence of purposes in God’s law and re-
mained firmly opposed to the idea that scripture could be used to justify
34 on taqlīd

mutually contradictory opinions. As Ibn al-Qayyim says, in the course of

his refutation of the position of the muqallid scholars:

We oppose the practice of saying, “Both of them [scholars who dis-

agreed with each other] were right in their interpretation of the
Book and Sunnah,” even while their opinions are contradictory.
Thus, the one who says this holds the evidences of the Book and the
Sunnah to be contradictory and conflicting, holding that God and
His Messenger command a thing and its opposite at the same time.
The one who says this also maintains that His religion is subject to
the opinions of men and that, in the meantime, there is no specific
ruling for him to act on. So he either follows this approach or he
declares incorrect the one who disagrees with his principal. He has
no choice but to follow one of these two courses—this is among the
blessings of imitation on him.

Like other traditionalists, Ibn al-Qayyim also rejects the new standard of
orthodoxy created by the Ashʿarī view. For as Professor Jackson shows, in
the absence of any notion of objective meaning, the acceptance of a legal
opinion would not depend on its intrinsic content but on its endorsement
by a recognized school. In fact, endorsement by a school would automati-
cally make an opinion orthodox.137 Ibn al-Qayyim expresses his opposition
to the muqallid scholars’ use of the concept of ijmāʿ thus:

When this trend started, the practice of abandonment of texts by

relying on supposed consensus came into being. Then, claims in
support of this began to surface. Now, when someone among the
imitators who does not know of the disagreement [in a particular
area of law] is argued against on the basis of the Qurʾan and the
Sunnah, he says: “This is against consensus.” This is precisely what
was rejected by the Imāms of Islam. They denounced the one who
did this, and said, “Anyone making such a claim [of the existence of
consensus] is a liar.” (Argument 52)138

For traditionalists, the mere fact that an opinion was followed by way of
taqlīd could not make that opinion orthodox. Orthodoxy did not depend
upon the figure of a mujtahid or the institution of a madhhab, but upon
scripture and the articulations of faith and law made by the salaf. Ibn al-
Qayyim, for instance, argues in his critique of taqlīd that “an opinion is not
 Introduction 35

correct by virtue of its bearer but because of the soundness of the proofs
that establish its validity.”
Furthermore, the Ashʿarīs also attracted a lot of criticism for being
critical of the claims to objective knowledge made by the Muʿtazilīs and
the traditionalists, while not always applying their rigorous moral rela-
tivism to themselves. For even as Ashʿarī jurists denounced the idea of
objectively correct interpretations of scripture, they often argued that
their own scriptural interpretations were in fact objectively correct. For
instance, Al-Qarāfī—while basing his argument for taqlīd on the fact
that the legal stance of one school cannot be established as preferable to
that of another on the basis of scripture—is severely critical of some
Ḥanafī scriptural interpretations that he holds to be simply wrong, de-
spite the fact that they fulfill his criterion of validity: acceptance by an
established school of law.139 Here, al-Qarāfī’s stance on such issues is not
substantively different from that of his master, al-ʿIzz, who refused to
recognize the validity of those views of the other schools that he held to
be incorrect, even if they could be supported by a far-fetched interpreta-
tion of scripture.
Similarly, the Ashʿārī theological stance on the impossibility of hold-
ing that God’s law was based on purposes and objectives was clearly at
odds with the legal doctrines of leading Ashʿarī scholars who upheld the
idea that the purpose of God’s law was the welfare of humanity. Al-Rāzī,
who denied in his tafsīr the possibility of imputing a rationale to God’s
law, nevertheless accepts in his writings on uṣūl that the rule that God
has established his law for the benefit of human beings should guide the
scholar who undertakes qiyās, because serving human interests is the
purpose of God’s law. Ashʿarīs, such as al-Ghāzalī and al-Juwaynī, went
so far in affirming the existence of wise purposes in God’s law that they
were actually condemned by their Mālikī opponents for extending the
scope of maṣlaḥah, or the welfare underlying divine law, further than
even the Mālikīs would.140 Al-Qarāfī too, while resting his argument for
the regime of taqlīd on the fact that in the absence of any authoritative
interpretation of scripture the interpretations of each school should be
protected, nevertheless has no trouble claiming that “whenever we find
a thing to be beneficial, we assume it to be a benefit which the law seeks
to promote.”141 Elsewhere, al-Qarāfī criticizes his fellow Malikī muqallids
who disagreed with his views and argues that anyone who contemplates
his own views with “a sound mind and a critical eye free of the partisan
bias of the madhhabs, which is unfitting for anyone who truly fears God
36 on taqlīd

Almighty” will come around to his view.142 To the extent that al-Qarāfī’s
argument here is accepted, it damages his argument in favor of taqlīd,
which challenged the very possibility of arriving at an objective and non-
partisan view. Similarly, in his uṣūl work, al-Maḥṣūl, al-Rāzī first lam-
poons those who deny the existence of purposes in God’s law, pointing
out that the Qurʾanic text leaves no way of denying the existence of such
purposes. However, a few paragraphs later, al-Rāzī goes on to insist that
the existence of purposes in the law of God is something to be denied
absolutely.143
Ibn al-Qayyim was very familiar with the works of Ashʿarī theolo-
gians and jurists. He had studied the works of al-Rāzī with leading
Ashʿarī scholars such as Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Armawī as well as with Ibn
Taymiyyah.144 He thus formulates a comprehensive traditionalist re-
sponse to Ashʿarī theology and jurisprudence in his most famous juris-
prudential work, the Iʿlām and devotes a large part of the Iʿlām to point-
ing out the errors of the doctrine of taqlīd as developed and understood
by his opponents.

-
Ibn al-Qayyim’s Iʿlam
Ibn al-Qayyim’s critique of taqlīd forms a crucial part of his larger discus-
sion of Islamic legal theory in the Iʿlām. He begins his work by providing
a traditionalist account of Islamic legal history and legal theory, before
moving on to dismiss what he regards as the misguided legal philosophy
of the ahl al-rāʾy and the textualists/literalists (Zāhirīs) on the question of
the relationship between divine law and rationality. Traditionalists such as
Ibn al-Qayyim had long accused these two groups of allowing either unre-
stricted rationality in law or none at all. This discussion is followed by a
lengthy refutation of those scholars who obligate all muftīs to perform
taqlīd of a particular school of law. Instead, Ibn al-Qayyim argues both for
the sufficiency of the Qurʾan and Sunnah as sources of authority and also
for the proposition that every rule found in the Qurʾan and Sunnah is ra-
tional and serves a wise purpose. Therefore, Ibn al-Qayyim argues, it is not
only logically impossible for the Qurʾān and the Sunnah to contradict
themselves or each other but also impossible for them ever to be irrational,
as mistakenly asserted by some scholars. This leads into a lengthy section
that is devoted to a refutation of scholarly attempts to circumvent clear
rules of the Qurʾan and Sunnah through the use of ḥiyal (legal loopholes
or stratagems). In the last section of the work, Ibn al-Qayyim discusses
 Introduction 37

general principles underlying iftāʾ (the discipline of issuing verdicts) and

then ends his work with a collection of Prophetic sayings, which he pres-
ents as Prophetic fatāwā, organizing them by subject. The Iʿlām thus dif-
fers from Ibn al-Qayyim’s Ṭuruq al-ḥukmiyyah, which is addressed to the
qāḍī (judge) as opposed to the muftī—although Ibn al-Qayyim points out
that a qāḍī could also be involved in issuing verdicts—and both works
share a concern with enabling those engaged in these fields to act accord-
ing to the letter and spirit of scripture.145
The fact that Ibn al-Qayyim is writing a book for muftīs who will be
asked to speak on behalf of God shows that he does not regard it as pos-
sible for every believer to derive from scripture all the legal rulings he
will be required to live by. It is precisely because he accepts that the
ordinary person will refer to a muftī that Ibn al-Qayyim also regards it
as necessary for the muftī to guide the questioner to what scripture says
and not to the position of a school, for Ibn al-Qayyim shares the view of
most Muslim scholars, who insist that the layman is not obliged to
adhere to a specific madhhab.146 Muftīs must also rule according to what
they perceive to be the correct position on any legal matter, because it is
that and not the intricate inter-madhhab debates that an ordinary person
comes to learn from them.147 Only when the muftī is asked specifically
regarding the ruling of his madhhab on a particular issue is it permis-
sible for him to narrate just that, instead of what he believes to be the
correct answer.

Ibn al-Qayyim’s Traditionalist Critique of Taqlı-d

Ibn al-Qayyim’s critique of the institutionalization of taqlīd forms part of
his overall defense of traditionalism and his attack on the legal culture
prevalent in his time. The main traditionalist principles Ibn al-Qayyim
was attempting to defend and which he felt were under attack by his
muqallid critics were the supremacy and self-sufficiency of scripture, the
harmony of reason and revelation, and the authority of the practice and
opinions of the earliest generation of Muslims, the salaf. For Ibn al-
Qayyim, the institutionalization of rigid madhhab-based taqlīd challenged
each of these principles and was associated with a host of other theological
and jurisprudential errors. This is one reason that legal and theological
arguments are interwoven in almost every section of the Iʿlām, not least
the section on taqlīd.148 Let us examine the significance of taqlīd to each of
these principles.
38 on taqlīd

First Traditionalist Principle: The Supremacy

and Self-Sufficiency of Scripture
Traditionalists such as Ibn al-Qayyim had long argued that scripture con-
tained an answer to all legal questions which could ever arise, but they
were opposed by two main theological and legal camps: the ahl al-rāʾy and
the Zāhirīs

Scriptural Text and Scriptural Intent: The Zāhirīs and the Ahl al-Rāʾy
The ahl al-rāʾy held that basing the law on the Qurʾan and Sunnah alone
was too restrictive an approach to legal reasoning and did not allow suffi-
cient room for human discretion in arriving at just legal outcomes. The ahl
al-ẓāhir argued, in terms opposite from those of the ahl al-rāʾy, that employ-
ing any kind of human reasoning in deriving law undermined God’s
sharīʿah and replaced it with subjective human desires and biases. The
Iʿlām is basically an attempt to chart a middle path between these two ap-
proaches. Ibn al-Qayyim’s main argument is that, while opposing the ahl
al-rāʾy and the ahl al-ẓāhir, the traditionalists combine, in their own legal
and theological theory, all that is best in the approach of the ahl al-rāʾy and
the ẓāhirīs. For the ahl al-ḥadīth, Ibn al-Qayyim’s party, are masters not only
of traditional disciplines such as ḥadīth but also of a scripturally inspired
rāʾy (personal reasoning or opinion), a fact that makes them better jurispru-
dents than the ahl al-rāʾy, even though the latter celebrated their own legal
acumen and dismissed the traditionalists as simple-minded literalists.149
Ibn al-Qayyim’s main concern, then, is to find a way of reading revela-
tion that upholds its status as the uncreated word of God—or, in the case
of the Sunnah, the inspired word of God—while allowing it to provide
guidance for ever-changing and contingent human needs. In fact, the
whole Iʿlām can be read as a commentary on al-Shāfiʿī’s meta-principle,
outlined in his Risālah, that the Qurʾan and the Sunnah contain the solu-
tion to every problem a Muslim could ever face: “On all matters touching
[the life] of a Muslim there is either a binding decision or an indication as
to the right answer.”150 Although Ibn al-Qayyim champions the dictum of
al-Shāfiʿī, he does make it clear that the latter’s reference to scripture refers
not only to its finite text, as argued by the Zāhirīs, but also to those general
rational principles on which the religious and legal edifice rests, which are
derived inductively from close observation and an overview of scripture.151
Against the Zāhirīs, Ibn al-Qayyim argues first, that the use of ratio-
nal principles such as qiyās (analogy), istiḥsān (juristic preference), sadd
 Introduction 39

al-dharāʾiʿ (blocking the means to a proscribed end), and maṣlaḥah (wel-

fare) in legal reasoning is justified, because it is based on the practice of
the earliest generation of Muslims (salaf ), which should be accepted as
normative by all Muslims. It is the Companions of the Prophet, Ibn al-
Qayyim reasons, who, with their perfect understanding of the purposes
of the Lawgiver, displayed the soundest form of rationality in their legal
reasoning, while remaining true to scripture.152 Those closest to them in
methodology are the great traditionists and ḥadīth scholars who,
although they used their rationality to understand better the purposes
and objectives behind God’s law, never set their rationality against scrip-
ture.153 For Ibn al-Qayyim, the fact that the sharīʿah seeks to promote
certain values, such as the removal of oppression and excessive hard-
ship, simply cannot be denied.154 Therefore, the term “scripture” does
not refer just to the text of the Qurʾan and Sunnah but also to the spirit
(rūḥ), underlying wisdom (ḥikmah), and higher objectives (maqṣad/
maqāṣid) behind the text.155 Because the text and its underlying rationale
are part of scripture, a muftī must not neglect either when issuing reli-
gious verdicts.156 Inductively derived legal principles are not, as claimed
by the Zāhirīs, an impious form of speculation about the will of God.
Rather, they are necessary and religiously obligatory procedures needed
to deduce scriptural solutions to new problems. A muftī who does not
accept this undermines scripture itself.
Having argued against the Zāhirīs that the institution of iftāʾ would
not function properly unless muftīs issue opinions that uphold the
spirit and rationale as well as the text of the law, Ibn al-Qayyim turns
the same argument against the ahl al-rāʾy and the kalām groups influ-
enced by them. He criticizes many of these groups for believing that
scripture, at least in its expression in the form of the Qurʾan and the
Sunnah, is limited and that human intellect therefore has a role to play
in determining (as opposed to inferring) the law.157 An even more dan-
gerous doctrine that Ibn al-Qayyim attributes to the ahl al-rāʾy is their
belief that many religious rulings are actually irrational or, at least,
a-rational. As a result, they are left with three choices when faced with
a scriptural text that commands what they perceive to be an irrational
obligation. The first is to obey the command as a matter of pure ritual.
The second is to reinterpret it. The third is to refuse to act in accor-
dance with it.158 Each of these approaches is erroneous, according to Ibn
al-Qayyim, because, to begin with, there can never be a contradiction
between reason and revelation.
40 on taqlīd

It is precisely because they do not believe in any underlying rationale

in the law, Ibn al-Qayyim suggests, that the ahl al-rāʾy are such strong
advocates of ḥiyal, or legal stratagems, whereby a muftī allows an act that
preserves the formal appearance of conformity to the law but discards
the law’s underlying wisdom and purpose, an example being the infa-
mous ḥalālah marriage, whereby a triply divorced wife enters into a mar-
riage contract only to allow her to return to her previous husband.159 For
if the law is seen to be non-rational to begin with, the question of pre-
serving its internal logic does not even arise—one need worry only about
preserving its external form as an act of ritual worship. Lest we think that
Ibn al-Qayyim’s discussion was based on abstract legal theory, we should
bear in mind that the validity of the ḥalālah marriage was one of the most
contentious issues debated between muqallids and critics of taqlīd in Ibn
al-Qayyim’s time and remains so to this day, as seen by the voluminous
literature on the subject by Deobandīs, who regard ḥalālah marriages as
licit, and the Ahl-e Ḥadīth, who insist that they are forbidden.

Jurisprudential Principles
Having dealt with the objections of the Zāhirīs and the ahl al-rāʾy, Ibn al-
Qayyim moves on to address the status of jurisprudential principles attrib-
uted to the founders of the schools of law that were often used by muqallid
scholars to justify their refusal to follow scriptural proofs that went against
them. Ibn al-Qayyim maintains that a scholar who sets aside a scriptural
obligation on the basis of its supposed contradiction with reason or with a
jurisprudential principle attributed to his Imām or his school has commit-
ted a grave theological and jurisprudential error.160 Muftīs must not issue
fatāwā that are contradicted by clear and authentic aḥādīth.161 They must
also avoid the practice of relying on vague scriptural texts whose legal
import is unclear, in order to prove the validity of their madhhab, while
rejecting clear and explicit texts because they stand in conflict with the
same.162 It is also not permissible for them to distort the straightforward
meaning of scriptural texts to make them conform to the opinions of their
schools, something muqallid scholars are guilty of.163

If the opinion of their own principal should go against a clear text

of God and His Messenger, they [the muqallid scholars] regard it as
obligatory to sport with the divine texts and use every artifice to take
them out of their proper meaning, circumventing them in every
possible way, until the opinion of their principal is proved correct.
 Introduction 41

By God, what would have become of His religion, His Book, and
His Messenger’s Sunnah when faced with an innovation that, if
successful, would almost ruin the throne of faith and destroy its
pillar? (Argument 16)

It is to emphasize the importance of issuing fatāwā that accord with

scriptural texts that Ibn al-Qayyim concludes his tract with a collection of
the fatāwā of the Prophet.164 He comments that in his own time, the au-
thority and importance of these verdicts has diminished in favor of ver-
dicts based on opinions that were not always supported by strong scrip-
tural proofs.165 He reminds muftīs that their primary loyalty is to scripture,
not to their own clique or madhhab, even when they can see that the latter
is incorrect.166
Ibn al-Qayyim argues that all the founding Imāms regarded it as forbid-
den to issue verdicts except on the basis of positive knowledge, by which
they meant scripture.167 The practice of his contemporaries, Ibn al-Qayyim
argues, is different.168 For muqallid muftīs issue fatāwā based on the mere
absence of known disagreement on an issue among the scholars of the
past, without looking into the Qurʾan, the Sunnah or the opinions of the
salaf, thereby devaluing the role of scripture:

When it came to the later generations, their practice was contrary to

this and they said, “If a new problem is presented before a muftī or
a ruler, he must first see whether there is any disagreement in this
area or not. If there is no disagreement, he does not need to look
into the Book or the Sunnah. Rather, he is to issue a verdict and
judgment based on consensus. But if there is disagreement in it,
then he is to exercise independent reasoning to find the view clos-
est to the [available] evidence, and he is to issue a verdict and a
ruling based on it.” This is contrary to what is proved by the ḥadīth
of Muʿādh, the letter of ʿUmar [to Shurayḥ] and the statements of
the Companions. (Argument 52)

For Ibn al-Qayyim, fatāwā must always be based, and be seen to be based,
on scripture. He therefore suggests that muftīs should follow the practice of
the Prophet, who would often mention proofs for his verdicts, despite the
fact that his rulings were themselves a source of law.169 Similarly, the Com-
panions and the salaf would generally mention the primary evidence from
the Qurʾan and the Sunnah on which they based their rulings. Doing this
42 on taqlīd

allows Muslims to recall that it is scripture, not the opinion of a particular

muftī or scholar, that carries ultimate authority in Islam.170 A recital of the
primary evidence, he argues, keeps the dynamic link between man and
God alive in the way that a bare legal fatwā simply cannot. Hence, the scrip-
tural evidence is the “spirit” and “ornament” of any fatwā.171
While muqallid scholars dismissed the idea that there could be madh-
hab opinions that were not based on authentic scriptural proofs, Ibn al-
Qayyim points out that there are many instances in which the legal schools
follow principles that prevent them from acting in accordance with scrip-
ture. This formed part of his larger argument, that not every principle
acted upon by the legal schools is necessarily correct. Rather, many of
these principles are both improperly derived and incorrectly applied—and
this is the case whenever they are made the basis for rejecting a clear
ruling of the Qurʾan and Sunnah.
For Ibn Qayyim, a scholar who resolves to approach the Qurʾan and
Sunnah free of sectarian and factional biases will be able to find in those
sources the answers to all legal and religious questions. It might be
thought that this argument is typical of the Salafī circle to which Ibn al-
Qayyim and his master belonged, but, as we have seen, muqallid scholars
such as al-Qarāfī employed virtually the same argument against their crit-
ics, that a scholar’s factional biases prevent him from upholding the
straightforward meaning of scripture. For Ibn Qayyim, a scholar who
adopts an unbiased approach would not be forced to maintain contrary
propositions in order to defend his madhhab as muqallid scholars are often
forced to do:

When you imitators find a verse in the Book of God that agrees with
your principal, you apparently act according to it, even while your
reliance is on what he said, not on the verse itself. And if you find a
verse relied on by your opponent that contradicts the opinion of
your principal, you do not act according to it. You seek other ways
to interpret it, in ways contrary to its apparent meaning, merely
because it does not correspond to his view. This is also how you act
when it comes to the Sunnah. If you find an authentic ḥadīth that
agrees with the opinion of your principal, you act according to it,
saying, “Our stance is absolutely supported by the words of the
Prophet that we choose to rely on.” And if you find one hundred
aḥādīth or more that go against his view, you do not act according to
a single one of them. (Argument 18)
 Introduction 43

Although he presents numerous examples of this approach in his essay on

taqlīd, Ibn al-Qayyim also devotes a large part of the Iʿlām to an indepen-
dent study of the jurisprudential principles relied on by the various schools
of law. One of the inconsistently followed legal principles that he discusses
at length is that calling for a Sunnah that contradicts the Qurʾan to be dis-
regarded when it comes to issuing fatāwā. In response, Ibn al-Qayyim
argues that, because the Qurʾan and Sunnah are both forms of revelation
from God, any Sunnah that conflicts with the Qurʾan should be seen as
elaborating the meaning of the Qurʾanic text and should be followed as an
enactment of the divine command to follow and obey the Prophet.172 To
refuse to accept that the Sunnah can add to the Qurʾan would mean oppos-
ing the Qurʾan itself, which commands obedience to the Prophet and de-
mands that Muslims refer their disputes to God and His Prophet, mean-
ing, Ibn al-Qayyim suggests, the Qurʾan and the Sunnah.
Similarly, Ibn al-Qayyim rejects the principle, adhered to by some
Mālikī scholars, that, in order to be accepted, a Sunnah must conform to
Medinese practice.173 Ibn al-Qayyim remains committed to the tradition-
alist principle of al-Shāfiʿī that the Sunnah, as contained in the aḥādīth,
is to act as arbiter over the actions of a community, and he argues that
this Mālikī jurisprudential principle essentially makes the actions of a
particular community the arbiter over the Sunnah.174 Unless the people
of Medina are relating, as only they are able to, what the Prophet’s
Sunnah actually was, there can be no justification for preferring the
practice of Medina over the authentically reported Sunnah.175 Even a sol-
itary Prophetic narration, so long as it is authentic, should be preferred
over the practice of the people of Medina that does not find support in
the Sunnah.176 A fortiori, then, there can be no justification for prefer-
ring the ijtihād of the scholars of Medina over that of other scholars,
which, Ibn al-Qayyim reports, is one of the positions upheld in the
Mālikī school.177 Rather, the Sunnah is a higher source of law than ijtihād,
and all ijtihād that opposes the Sunnah is thus necessarily flawed and
must not be followed.178
Ibn al-Qayyim is also critical of the principle adopted by some schools,
such as the Ḥanafīs, that calls for the abandonment of a ḥadīth whose nar-
rator issues an opinion conflicting with the ḥadīth he narrates.179 This
principle is based on the assumption that the narrator would not have
issued a conflicting fatwā unless he believed that the ḥadīth in question
had been abrogated. Ibn al-Qayyim adds that the mere fact of the narrator
not acting according to the ḥadīth is sometimes used as proof of his
44 on taqlīd

corruption, and the ḥadīth is then rejected on the grounds that the narra-
tor was an impious individual whose narrations are not reliable.180 For Ibn
al-Qayyim this principle clearly detracts from the supremacy of ḥadīth and
scripture. After listing numerous instances in which aḥādīth have been
dropped for this reason, Ibn al-Qayyim demonstrates that muqallid schol-
ars from all schools do actually reason on the basis of aḥādīth, even when
they are contradicted by the fatāwā of their narrators. He shows that this
is usually done in cases in which the aḥādīth in question support the mad-
hhab of the muqallid scholars themselves.181 Ibn al-Qayyim argues once
again that muqallid scholars make taqlīd the ultimate legal principle on the
basis of which scripture is then forsaken.

Scriptural Flexibility
Ibn al-Qayyim never suggests that accepting the supremacy of scripture
will bring an end to all scholarly differences of opinion based on ijtihād.
On the contrary, his criticism of the regime of taqlīd is precisely that it
compels obedience to the ijtihād of certain scholars, even in matters in
which there is no way of establishing, in absolute terms, the superiority of
one ijtihād over another. In such cases, each scholar should be free to
adopt the view that seems best to him and should not be compelled to
perform taqlīd of another.182 The view of the early scholars themselves was
that nobody had the right to insist on taqlīd in matters of ijtihād, because
ijtihād was only possible, in the first place, when the Lawgiver Himself
had not given an explicit ruling to be followed on an issue:

Further, whatever matter is unclear to them [the muqallid scholars]

is, for them, among the matters subject to ijtihād. But, as such, the
most that can be said about an opinion issued on such a matter is
that following it is permissible. It cannot be said that it is obligatory,
nor can anyone be compelled to follow such an opinion. These
[early] scholars did not say, “This opinion of mine is the only truth,
and that which is contrary to it is not so.”

By insisting that even the ijtihād-based fatāwā of the eponymous Imāms

and their followers be upheld and defended, muqallid scholars had, in Ibn
al-Qayyim’s view, destroyed the distinction between ijtihād and ikhtilāf.183
Differences in matters of ijtihād could arise for any of several reasons,
such as a genuine ambiguity in a scriptural text. Here, a mujtahid whose
ijtihād is objectively correct will earn two rewards for his ijtihād, but even
 Introduction 45

the mujtahid who is incorrect will earn a reward for doing his best to under-
stand what God demanded of him.184 But it is not the case, Ibn al-Qayyim
argues, that every issue over which the scholars hold differing views neces-
sarily falls within the ambit of ijtihād in which scripture does not provide a
clear ruling. For scholars could have fallen into disagreement even where
there was an authentic, clear, and unambiguous scriptural text. Thus, every
area of ijtihād is one where there is legitimate disagreement (ikhtilāf ), but
the reverse is not true: not every area where ikhtilāf has occurred is neces-
sarily one where it is legitimate to carry out ijtihād.185 In areas of legitimate
ijtihād it is improper to denounce a particular view and insist on one’s own
taqlīd. In areas of ikhtilāf where there is no room for ijtihād because of the
presence of a clear scriptural ruling, taqlīd of an incorrect ijtihād-based
opinion is all the more reprehensible.
Ibn al-Qayyim does anticipate that his legal theory will be attacked for
its rigidity and inflexibility in making scripture—both its text and its un-
derlying meaning—the only source of law. He responds to his critics at
length and, in doing so, argues that it is actually the rigid taqlīd of the
fatāwā of the Imāms and their schools that brings inflexibility into the law.
By contrast, he argues, traditionalists such as Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Mālik
accept that verdicts and rulings based on scripture do, in fact, change with
time, place, and context.186 Muftīs should therefore, as far as possible,
issue verdicts in accordance with the local custom of the people, instead of
relying on the legal culture and tradition of their own schools.187 This is
particularly true in cases of marriage, oaths, and contracts, in which the
custom of people varies with time and place and in which muqallid schol-
ars cause great hardship for the people by not updating their legal conven-
tions in accordance with societal change.188
Ibn al-Qayyim offers many specific examples of the sharīʿah itself
changing its specific rules in order to protect its overall objectives. In this
context, he discusses the religious obligation to promote righteousness
(al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf ), pointing out that, although this is an obligation, it is
at times forbidden, because if carried out it would make matters worse,
not better.189 He also cites the example of the suspension of capital pun-
ishment for theft on the battlefield, pointing out that this punishment is
suspended because the greater benefit dictates it.190 Ibn al-Qayyim calls
for aims and higher objectives to be considered in the process of legal in-
terpretation not only in interpersonal (civil) law (muʿāmalāt) but also in
acts of ritual and worship (ʿibādāt).191 Ibn al-Qayyim’s discussion of this
topic therefore differs from that of many scholars who have addressed the
46 on taqlīd

same issue, who would only allow legal objectives to be considered in mat-
ters of interpersonal law, not in matters of worship.

Second Traditionalist Principle: The Harmony

of Reason and Revelation
The traditionalists did not only uphold the supremacy of scripture, they
also believed in the harmony of scripture and reason.192 This, too, was a
principle that they felt was undermined by the kind of rigid taqlīd advo-
cated by the muqallid scholars, particularly those influenced by the ahl
al-rāʾy and the speculative theologians. In the traditionalist view, it was
the belief of many of the ahl al-rāʾy that religious rulings are not always
rational that compelled them to hold that there can be no scriptural logic
by which one legal interpretation or analogy is preferred over another, a
position similar to that of the later Ashʿarī scholars discussed previously.
Ibn al-Qayyim argues that many muftīs who subscribe to the position of
the ahl al-rāʾy presume almost all inferential reasoning based on scripture
to be valid and morally neutral, because scripture, according to them,
does not provide any objective criterion or rationale on the basis of which
one analogy may be preferred over another.193 The legal and theological
culture of the ahl al-rāʾy therefore pushes scholars to secure legitimacy for
a particular legal analogy by fortifying it through the institution of taqlīd.
For, having rejected the idea that scripture was rational and sought to
fulfill certain purposes and objectives, the ahl al-rāʾy could no longer turn
to scripture to justify their (rational) analogies. Instead, the mujtahid’s
preference (istiḥsān) for one of many valid analogies itself becomes, for
the ahl al-rāʾy, a proof of the correctness of that particular analogy and a
reason for later scholars to favor it over others. By allowing more unregu-
lated ijtihād in the first place, the ahl al-rāʾy thus end up having to insist
on rigid taqlīd, to ensure some degree of legal coherence at the level of the
school and the legal system. Hence, a jurist working fully within in the
legal culture of the ahl al-rāʾy could not be required to justify his istiḥsān,
or preference, for a particular analogy on purely rational grounds. Rather,
the theological view that God’s law was not, or need not be, based on any
underlying rationale in the first place meant that such justifications would
be regarded as almost impossible. Therefore, a jurist’s opinions and his
istiḥsān would be followed mainly because of one’s acceptance of his
knowledge, intellect, or even his intuition and spiritual authority, hence
the celebration of the spiritual authority of the Imāms. A dictum widely
 Introduction 47

attributed to the ahl al-rāʾy perfectly captured the solipsism of this posi-
tion: al-istiḥsān mā istaḥsan al-mujtahid min ʿaqlih, “istiḥsān is whatever
the mujtahid deems as istiḥsān on the basis of his own intellect.” The
mujtahid’s istiḥsān could therefore rest on unstated grounds that might be
made the subject of taqlīd, even if the rationale behind his istiḥsān was
unclear and apparently opposed to scripture.194 Thereafter, the more the
role of the mujtahid is exalted, the more later scholars refuse to depart
from his opinions and attribute their own opinions to him to gain legiti-
macy for them, until muqallid scholars such as al-Karkhī eventually adopt
a jurisprudential principle stating that every scriptural text that opposes
their school’s position would have to be reinterpreted until it was in con-
formity with the same, thereby committing themselves to using scripture
to defend opinions that were not evidently rational and that might well
have contradicted a scriptural proof.195
For traditionalists such as Ibn al-Qayyim, there was a clear link be-
tween the theological stance of the ahl al-rāʾy, their proclivity for taqlīd,
and the dangerous doctrine that reason and revelation were somehow in
conflict. As we have seen, Ibn al-Qayyim was critical of the view that scrip-
tural texts retained a level of inherent interpretive ambiguity which made
it impossible to identify an objectively correct opinion on the basis of
scripture.196 For as long as scholars subscribed to this view, they would be
driven to derive the authority of a particular legal opinion not from scrip-
ture but by linking it with a previous figure or institution of authority. Ibn
al-Qayyim thus dismisses muqallid muftīs who constantly justify their ver-
dicts by arguing that “such was (ka dhālik) the practice of previous au-
thorities” calling them the “‘such-was’ scholars”!197
Ibn al-Qayyim also criticizes some of his muqallid contemporaries for
upholding verdicts and analogies which do not promote the aims of the
sharīʿah, such as the avoidance of hardship. Instead, Ibn al-Qayyim argues,
muqallid scholars often uphold verdicts and analogies which undermine
these aims. This reinforces the incorrect impression that the law is irratio-
nal and inconsistent because religious rulings are seen to be in conflict
with the aims and values which the religious law seeks to protect. For Ibn
al-Qayyim, a religious ruling that undermines the aims of the sharīʿah, for
instance by leading to greater hardship, would automatically contradict
both scripture and reason. For as the sharīʿah exists for the benefit of man,
as a means of mercy to him and for the establishment of his welfare, any
fatwā that does not promote these values automatically falls outside
Islam.198 In fact, such a fatwā could have come into the religion only as a
48 on taqlīd

result of faulty interpretation or because of a misunderstanding of the ra-

tionale underlying God’s law.199 Scripture and reason cannot actually con-
flict with each other or with themselves.
Ibn al-Qayyim goes on to argue that muqallid scholars often, when ar-
guing against a scriptural proof that goes against their madhhab, attribute
irrationality to scripture and claim that there is a tension between reason
and revelation. He suggests that, when viewed free of the partisanship of
the madhhab, such irrationality tends to disappear. He cites the practice of
a group of scholars who, following the principles of their schools, rejected
certain aḥādīth for being in conflict with reason or with the Qurʾan. He
cites seventy-three examples of cases in which a group of scholars refused
to act on the Sunnah, claiming that the Sunnah being presented contra-
dicted the Qurʾan.200 Ibn al-Qayyim is critical of these scholars, whose
loyalty to their schools has led them to hold that Islam (which is built on
both authentic scripture, in the form of the Qurʾan and Sunnah, and on
sound qiyās based on these two sources) is self-contradictory and hence
irrational. He presents Qurʾanic proofs to show that there can be no con-
tradiction in the religion and then presents numerous examples of cases
in which these same scholars themselves accept that the Sunnah can re-
strict the meaning of the Qurʾan.201 Thus, Ibn al-Qayyim attempts to show
that it is loyalty to the school that determines when muqallid scholars grant
the Sunnah the authority to specify the Qurʾan and when they do not. Ibn
al-Qayyim’s argument here echoes that employed by al-Shāfiʿī against Abū
Ḥanīfah’s student al-Shaybāni (d. 189/805), whom al-Shāfiʿī criticized for
following a contradictory approach on the issue of accepting solitary nar-
rations.202 Instead of starting with the principle of loyalty to their schools—
whose positions have to be defended, come what may—Ibn al-Qayyim
would prefer that all scholars start with the basic premise that there is no
contradiction in anything that comes from God. Human intellect, he
argues, should be used to show the strength of revelation by resolving
seeming contradictions between the Qurʾan, ḥadīth, and reason rather
than to throw up false contradictions between them for the sake of loyalty
to the madhhab.203

Third Traditionalist Principle: The Authority of the Salaf

Traditionalists such as Ibn al-Qayyim condemned as a blameworthy inno-
vation (bidʿah) any religious belief or practice introduced after the era of the
salaf. This was one of the grounds on which they argued against muqallid
 Introduction 49

scholars whom they accused of advocating a form of taqlīd that was un-
known among the salaf. Ibn al-Qayyim makes this the first of his 81 sub-
stantive arguments against taqlīd:

We also know as a matter of necessity that during the time of the

Companions there was no individual whom everyone followed and
imitated in everything, or in favor of whom the views of all others
were rejected. We also know necessarily that such a thing did not
occur in the times of the Successors and those who followed them.
So let the imitators demonstrate that we are liars by producing even
a single man who acted according to their pernicious methodology
in the generations that were declared meritorious by the Prophet.
This innovation appeared in the fourth century, which [period] had
already been condemned by the Prophet, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be on him. (Argument 1)

It was thus not taqlīd itself but the transformed understanding of the con-
cept advocated by later muqallid scholars that traditionalists such as Ibn
al-Qayyim rejected. While the salaf saw it as acceptable to perform taqlīd of
a variety of scholars with differing legal opinions, later muqallid scholars
insisted that everyone adhere to a particular school of law. Early scholars
regarded it as acceptable for people to pray behind an imām whose prayer
they themselves would not regard as valid, as shown by the example of
Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798), the student of Abū Ḥanīfah who regarded his
prayer behind the caliph al-Rashīd as valid, even when informed subse-
quently that al-Rashīd had performed an action that would make his
prayer invalid in the Ḥanafī school.204 By contrast, later scholars would
regard as invalid a prayer performed behind someone from a different
school.205 The salaf set preconditions for ijtihād, which were, by and large,
attainable and realistic, but later muqallid scholars not only insisted that a
mujtahid would need to memorize at least 500,000 aḥādīth but also set
various other preconditions for ijtihād, which even the founding Imāms of
the four schools could not always be said to have met.206 Eventually, the
transformation in what it means to adhere to the opinions of a scholar or
a school becomes so great that we find muqallid scholars opining that a
person leaving the madhhab of these scholars should be given a discretion-
ary punishment (taʿzīr), but a person abandoning his own madhhab in
favor of theirs should not.207 As for the practice of issuing verdicts, the
salaf, according to Ibn al-Qayyim, regarded it as prohibited to issue fatāwā
50 on taqlīd

except on the basis of positive scriptural knowledge. The muqallid schol-

ars, by contrast, regard any fatwā that is not based on taqlīd of a school of
law to be invalid. Although muqallid scholars did defend their practice on
the grounds that their fatāwā were mere narrations of the verdicts handed
down by earlier scholars, Ibn al-Qayyim dismisses their argument. He
points out that a layman, too, has the ability to narrate fatāwā, but his in-
ability to carry out scriptural ijtihād prevents one from accepting his right
to issue them in the first place:

Now, if this person [the muqallid] accepts that issuing verdicts is al-
lowed for the [imitator] who is ignorant of the proofs and of their
true meaning, simply because he has memorized the rulings re-
lated to trivial matters, he must concede that this right to issue ver-
dicts should also be granted to everyone.

Innovated Taqlı-d
By Ibn al-Qayyim’s time, muqallid scholars had developed a legal culture
that allowed a jurist to remain a muqallid even while disagreeing entirely
with the opinions of the salaf from his own school and, occasionally, from
all schools.208 This was done largely by creating elaborate taxonomies of
the ranks of jurists that allowed them to be classified as muqallids, even
when they carried out ijtihād.209 It is no surprise that the scholars most
inclined to taqlīd also produced the most elaborate typologies of jurists,
while critics of taqlīd not only had fewer categories of jurists but also in-
sisted that most jurists, regardless of rank, had the right or obligation to
carry out ijtihād. Ibn al-Qayyim, for instance, recognizes only four catego-
ries of jurists.210 The pro-taqlīd Ibn ʿĀbidīn, on the other hand, recognizes
as many as seven.211 This creation of subcategories of muqallids and muj-
tahids allowed muqallid jurists to pay deference to the principle of ijtihād
in theory while, in practice, condemning those who did not present their
ijtihād as a form of taqlīd.
The obfuscation of the various subcategories of ijtihād and taqlīd by
muqallid scholars was, to some extent, necessary, for only by making these
terms genuinely flexible could muqallid scholars create the space they
needed to exercise their own forms of ijtihād under the guise of taqlīd. We
can see this in the works of Ibn al-Shāṭṭ (d. 723/1323), who, in the course
of commenting on al-Qarāfī’s Furūq, refers to a category of scholars who
are “muqallid-mujtahid.”212 Similarly, al-Shaʿrānī refers to a form of ijtihād
 Introduction 51

that is both absolute and affiliated (muṭlaq muntasib), meaning that it is

based on scripture but is also affiliated with a particular school of law. In
such cases, the oxymoronic nature of the terms being used betrays the
underlying confusion surrounding them.213 It is true that muqallid schol-
ars were theoretically not supposed to go beyond the basic jurisprudential
principles of their Imāms and schools. However, the fact that muqallid
scholars were often the ones who created these jurisprudential principles
in the first place, as suggested by Shāh Walī Allāh, means that it is at least
theoretically possible to rank them higher than the founding Imāms, who
rarely clarified their jurisprudential theory. Moreover, jurisprudence was
not the only area in which the muqallid scholars could be said to have out-
ranked the founding Imāms. The taqlīd critic al-Ṣanʿānī points out that
later muqallid scholars made scriptural interpretations that would have
been unknown in the time of the Imāms to whose schools they ascribed
themselves.214 Ibn al-Qayyim also comments on this paradox created by
the muqallid scholars:

If the imitator-scholars, whom all the scholars exclude from the cat-
egory of the people of knowledge, and who themselves admit that
they are not so, were the true followers of the principals, then those
eminent scholars who relied on proofs could not have been among
their adherents. Thus, when it came to following the principals, the
ignorant imitator-scholars would end up more felicitous than those
scholars who relied on evidence. But this is truly impossible. (Argu-
ment 44)

The distinction between mujtahid and muqallid scholars is further ob-

scured when we consider the ways in which muqallid scholars from the
various schools of law dealt with ḥadīth material when formulating their
doctrines and verdicts. The Ḥanbalī school was known to have a long-
standing tradition of allowing muqallid scholars to base their opinions on
authentic aḥādīth, even if this meant going against their Imāms. From
early scholars, such as Ibn ʿAqīl, to later ones, such as Ibn Taymiyyah,
Ḥanbalī jurists often departed from the doctrines of their school on the
basis of their understanding of aḥādīth, while still claiming to be followers
of the Ḥanbalī school.215 The Shāfiʿīs too, given the legacy of their found-
ing Imām, who had argued for the overarching supremacy of authentic
aḥādīth, allowed muqallid scholars to follow authentic aḥādīth, even if
these went against the rulings of their Imāms. Several Shāfiʿī scholars
52 on taqlīd

would argue that following the authentic aḥādīth was itself the primary
Shāfiʿī jurisprudential principle and that a scholar who did so was there-
fore not outside the fold of the madhhab. Ibn al-Qayyim records Ibn al-
Ṣalāḥ’s (d. 643/1245) discussion of an opinion allowing even those Shāfiʿī
scholars who do not fulfill all the qualifications of ijtihād to follow a ḥadīth
that contradicted the rulings of their Imām.216 There was also a trend in
favor of this approach in the Ḥanafī school, and many of its scholars
issued rulings that a ḥadīth that was found to be contrary to the madhhab
could be acted on by a Ḥanafī scholar. Once again, it was argued that, be-
cause following aḥādīth was a Ḥanafī jurisprudential principle, the scholar
who followed aḥādīth in opposition to the rulings of the madhhab did not
thereby abandon the madhhab.217 Occasionally, Ḥanafī scholars such as
Abū Yūsuf even extended this right to lay people.218
Calder is therefore wrong in taking the typologies of the ranks of ju-
rists that refer to absolute mujtahids and absolute muqallids, such as those
presented by al-Nawawī, to be actual representations of the ranks of schol-
ars.219 In reality, the idea of an absolutely independent mujtahid, who con-
sulted nothing but scripture, is an artificial construction, as is the idea of
a muqallid scholar who does not carry out any ijtihād.220 Ibn al-Qayyim
points out that the mujtahid Imāms themselves performed taqlīd on some
issues, even after attaining the rank of mujtahid, which makes it difficult
to create a strict dichotomy between muqallids and mujtahids. Speaking of
the first of his four categories of muftīs, who are known for carrying out
ijtihād based on scripture, Ibn al-Qayyim states that,

their occasional taqlīd of others does not negate their [ability to

carry out] ijtihād. You will not find a single Imām who did not per-
form taqlīd of someone more knowledgeable than himself on cer-
tain issues.221

Just as he concedes that a mujtahid may sometimes perform taqlīd, Ibn al

Qayyim also argues that even the layman may occasionally exercise a kind
of ijtihād, for instance, in his choice of a muftī.222
Ibn al-Qayyim’s comments on this issue set him apart not just from
the muqallid scholars of his day but also from previous Ḥanbalī authorities
such as Ibn ʿAqīl, who had rejected the idea of a mujtahid performing
taqlīd.223 For Ibn al-Qayyim, while both the mujtahid and the layman are
allowed to perform taqlīd, neither may do so if it means ignoring other,
stronger evidence.224 Any person, scholar or not, who sees that the truth
 Introduction 53

lies with someone other than the one he imitates but continues to imitate
him nonetheless, is engaging in a kind of impermissible taqlīd. And for
Ibn al-Qayyim, no scholar can be excused from the obligation of referring
to scripture and the opinions of the salaf. It is precisely because muqallid
scholars devalue these two sources of authority that Ibn al-Qayyim de-
nounces the kind of taqlīd they advocate:

O people of imitation, every sect among you lowers the rank of all
the Companions, the Successors, and all the scholars of the com-
munity, from the first to the last, to a level where no opinions are to
be considered, except for the opinions of the one you imitate. Nor
are their verdicts [i.e., of these other scholars] to be looked into,
engaged with, or relied upon. Nor is there any point in examining
them, except to circumvent them and to sharpen one’s mind by ex-
erting oneself in rejecting the views of other scholars, if their opin-
ions contradict the opinions of one’s own principals. This is deemed
permissible by them in order to refute their rivals. If the opinion of
their own principal should go against a clear text of God and His
Messenger, they regard it as obligatory to sport with the divine texts
and use every artifice to take them out of their proper meaning,
circumventing them in every possible way, until the opinion of
their principal is proved correct. (Argument 16)

Ibn al-Qayyim rejects the division of labor between mujtahid and muqallid
scholars that makes scriptural ijtihād the province of the former to the
exclusion of the latter. For, as Ibn al-Qayyim argues repeatedly, there is no
real conceptual difference between the work of mujtahid and muqallid
scholars. Once a scholar (of whatever rank) has understood the reason for
ikhtilāf, he should be able to adopt the view that seems to be correct to him
in light of scripture.

- and Taqlı-d
Scriptural Ijtihad
The regime of taqlīd did indeed allow muqallid scholars to use scripture in
their legal reasoning but only to prefer one of the existing opinions of a
madhhab over another. This activity of choosing between existing opin-
ions was known as tarjīḥ, and this is precisely where the muqallid scholar
was supposed to exercise ijtihād. Muqallid scholars could thus overturn
earlier madhhab opinions and replace them with their own, claiming all
54 on taqlīd

along that they were merely identifying the strongest opinion, known,
inter alia, as rājiḥ, ẓāhir, and aẓhar.225 Furthermore, muqallid scholars
could displace existing opinions in the madhhab by putting forward their
own opinion as the predominant opinion (mashhūr) of their schools, as
al-Ḥajjāwī (d. 968/1560–1561) does throughout his Ḥanbalī handbook,
Zād al-mustaqniʿ, in which he often substitutes his own opinions for those
of the madhhab authority Ibn Qudāmah (whose work Ḥajjāwī was sum-
marizing).226 Scholars who carried out tarjīḥ on the basis of scripture were
still classified as muqallids and partial mujtahids (mujtahid fī l-madhhab) in
their schools, rather than absolute ones.227 However, basing one’s opin-
ions on one’s own understanding of scripture is precisely what a mujtahid
does, and this makes it difficult to see the aforementioned scholars as
anything but mujtahids.228 This is the reason some scholars, such as Ibn
ʿArabī (d. 637/1240), came out against the use of ambivalent legal terms
such as mashhūr altogether and argued that a scholar should simply accept
the views best substantiated by scripture.229
While muqallid scholars made much of the difference between ijtihād
and tarjīḥ, critics of taqlīd would point out that there was little difference
between the tarjīḥ of the muqallid scholar and the ijtihād of a non-muqallid.
A striking phrase in al-Ṣanʿānī’s work on this subject encapsulates the
debate on this issue. Addressing his muqallid detractors, al-Ṣanʿānī says,
“that which the muqallids call tarjīḥ is in fact ijtihād muṭlaq” (inna hādha
alladhī sammāhu tarjīḥan huwa al-ijtihād al-muṭlaq). Had the contentious
scholarly opinion which, under the regime of taqlīd, struggles to gain ac-
ceptance as an instance of tarjīḥ, come forth at an earlier age, it would have
been labeled the work of a mujtahid muṭlaq and been recognized as an exer-
cise in ijtihād.230 Elsewhere, al-Ṣanʿānī calls tarjīḥ “pure opinion,” in order
to stress the level of personal discretion involved in the process.231 Ibn ʿAqīl,
too, stated that the activity of tarjīḥ would involve a muqallid choosing be-
tween the views of different mujtahids by examining them for their compat-
ibility with scripture, which is precisely the activity that marks an absolute
mujtahid.232 Ibn al-Qayyim also expresses his dissatisfaction with the muqa-
llid scholars who insisted that examining scriptural evidence and proofs
was the work of the mujtahid but then insisted on doing so themselves:

The opposite of every religious obligation stands nullified necessar-

ily. If imitation, regarding which there is disagreement, is among
the obligations imposed by law, then the nullity of seeking proofs
and following evidence is established [because imitation would be
 Introduction 55

obligatory, and ijtihād, its opposite, would therefore be forbidden].

So, accepting one of these two propositions necessitates the rejec-
tion of the other; the veracity of one dictates the nullity of the other.
We intend to mention this as evidence and say, “If imitation is part
of the religion, then it cannot be permissible to abandon it in favor
of ijtihād and the seeking of inferences, because that would neces-
sitate its invalidity.” (Argument 74)

Nevertheless, the insistence of the muqallid scholars that all ijtihād take
the form of tarjīḥ meant that Ibn al-Qayyim and his peers were not inter-
locutors in a hypothetical discussion about the possibility of ijtihād but a
real one, in which many muqallids were suggesting that there could no
longer be any ijtihād, at least ijtihād based on scripture.233 Ibn al-Qayyim
presents the views of the muqallid scholars in the following terms:

As the doors of ijtihād are shut according to you, and as you closed
off the paths leading to it, the only thing that remains as an obliga-
tion is imitation. So, leaving it for something the doors to which are
closed and the path thereto blocked, is, for you, a sin, and the one
who traverses this path is a sinner. (Argument 74)

Scholars who claimed the right to exercise ijtihād, such as Ibn Rushd the
Grandfather, were strongly criticized by their contemporaries and by later
authorities in their own schools for their refusal to perform taqlīd of their
Imāms, and many of their ijtihād-based opinions were marginalized and
suppressed by later muqallid scholars in their schools.234 Many of their
muqallid contemporaries would also deny that scholars, such as the afore-
mentioned Ibn Rushd, who claimed to be mujtahids, had actually attained
that lofty status. Even al-Suyūṭī’s declaration that he was a mujtahid makes
sense only if we see it in the context of his disagreement with those schol-
ars who held that such a thing was impossible, a fact that also explains the
harsh reaction of muqallid scholars to his claim. Some critics of taqlīd lived
in fear for their lives because of their opposition to taqlīd, sometimes only
revealing their opposition to taqlīd on their death beds.235 By some ac-
counts, al-Shāfiʿī himself was killed by a Mālikī who was outraged at al-
Shāfiʿī’s insolence in not performing taqlīd of his teacher. One may also
recall the ordeal of Ibn ʿAqīl, who was pursued through the streets by a
Ḥanbalī mob enraged at the fact that he had disagreed with the principles
of his school. Similar threats were faced by al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī and
56 on taqlīd

others. The gates of ijtihād might not have closed in reality, but walking
through them was a dangerous activity, as critics of taqlīd learned.
Ibn al-Qayyim therefore attempts to demolish some of the more ab-
stract distinctions among the degrees of knowledge that were held to be
attainable by mujtahid and muqallid scholars. He defines knowledge as
grasping or perceiving something as it is. Since muqallid scholars justify
their ability to carry out tarjīḥ on the basis of their understanding of the
legal opinions of their predecessors, Ibn al-Qayyim argues that they are
potentially as knowledgeable about those legal opinions as were their pre-
decessors. He also points out that limiting the role of muqallid scholars to
choosing between preexisting opinions within their schools makes it
more difficult for the scripture-based opinions of the salaf to be incorpo-
rated in the schools of law:

O you, party of imitation, if some of your scholars from your own

school, whom you imitate, issue an opinion that contradicts the
opinion of the principal of the school, or if they derive a new opin-
ion based on this, you regard this as acceptable and issue judg-
ments and verdicts according to this new opinion [that comes from
your own school]. Yet if an Imām who was a contemporary of your
principal or even superior to him in rank has an opinion that con-
tradicts that of your principal, you do not incline towards it, nor is it
of any great significance for you. Even though it is well known that
just one of the scholars among those who were contemporaries of
your principal is more exalted than all the subsequent scholars of
your school from beginning to end. So how evil is your division and
taxonomy of scholars that it would make the view of the lesser
scholar a salient view in the school. By God, this is extraordinary.
The verdict or judgment of one who supposedly decides in accor-
dance with one of the scholars of the madhhab is more worthy of
acceptance than the verdict of one who bases his verdicts on the
opinions of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. (Argument 79)

Ibn al-Qayyim also opposes the taxonomies of the ranks of jurists created by
the muqallid scholars, because these taxonomies often concealed the extent
to which later muqallid scholars wielded more influence on the schools than
did the founding Imāms whom they claimed to imitate. The muqallid schol-
ars, in Ibn al-Qayyim’s view, claimed to be following their schools, even
when they adopted rules that went against the basic foundations on which
 Introduction 57

the school was established. We have already seen that a muqallid scholar
could gain legitimacy for his views by refusing to acknowledge his own
ijtihād and attributing it instead to the eponym and the madhhab. A qiyās
made by a Ḥanafī muqallid, for instance, could be held to be the actual qiyās
of Abū Ḥanīfah and, hence, of the madhhab, because Abū Ḥanīfah was held
to have allowed qiyās in principle. According to al-Qārafī, muqallid scholars
carrying out tarjīḥ would also review the appropriateness (munāsabah) of a
qiyās made by earlier authorities, thereby providing the muqallid scholar
with an opportunity to stamp his own influence on the largest part of law,
which was not derived from scripture directly but only through a process of
qiyās.236 Muqallid scholars could also attribute incorrect jurisprudential
principles and even incorrect legal opinions to the Imāms.237 Some Ḥanafīs,
for example, incorrectly attributed to Abū Ḥanīfah the principle that anal-
ogy is to be given preference over solitary ḥadīth narrations. Ibn al-Qayyim
argues that the attribution of this principle to Abu Ḥanīfah is incorrect. He
points out that if this had been a principle of Abū Ḥanīfah, he would not
have ruled in accordance with a ḥadīth that stipulates that a man who laughs
in prayer thereby invalidates his state of ritual purity. Despite its weakness,
Abū Ḥanīfah preferred this ḥadīth over analogy, which would require some
common factor or similarity between laughter and other actions that nullify
one’s ritual ablutions, if they were both going to have the same effect.238
Ibn al-Qayyim was correct in commenting on the way in which muqal-
lid scholars employed their taxonomies of the ranks of jurists to enhance
the authority of the eponymous Imāms and diminish the contributions of
later scholars. It is well known, for instance, that Abū Yūsuf and al-
Shaybānī both made a greater contribution to the Ḥanafī school than did
their Imām, carried out their own scriptural ijtihād, and freely rejected
many of the doctrines and opinions of their teacher. Yet they would still be
classified by later muqallids as second-rank mujtahids.239 Later Ḥanafī
scholars would explain that all the opinions of scholars belonging to a
school could be attributed to the founding Imām, under the assumption
that they too were his (unrecorded) opinions.240 In this way the muqallid
scholars denied that they made any substantive contribution to the school.
Instead, they projected their own opinions back in time, in order to gain
authority for them. Similarly, Ibn Ḥanbal’s students, who had more to do
with the formation of the Ḥanbalī madhhab than did Ibn Ḥanbal himself,
would always occupy a lower rank than their Imām.241 In addition, muqal-
lid scholars from the various schools of law frequently claimed indepen-
dent mujtahids as muqallids of their own schools, thereby attempting to
58 on taqlīd

bolster the legitimacy of the latter. Independent scholars who were claimed
by muqallid scholars for their own schools include Ibn al-Mundhir
(d. 318/930) and al-Bukhārī.242 The latter was even claimed, somewhat
fantastically, by the Ḥanafīs, despite the fact that al-Bukhārī was believed
to have devoted almost a third of his famous Ṣaḥīḥ to refuting the opin-
ions of Abū Ḥanīfah.243
For Ibn al-Qayyim, there was little to celebrate in a legal regime that
bestowed a false legitimacy on the views of later scholars by attributing
them to the salaf while actually ignoring the views of the salaf themselves:

The later in time a person is, the more they [the contemporary
scholars] adopt his views and the more they abandon (or almost
abandon) the views of those who preceded him. This continues
until you find that the followers of the Imāms are the ones who
most often ignore their opinions. The people of each age deliver
judgments and verdicts based on the views of those lower than the
Imāms—and lower still—and those closest to them [in time]. As
time progresses, the abandonment of the opinions of the earlier
times increases, as does the practice of turning away from them.
This continues until his [the earlier scholar’s] own books almost
disappear. The more distant in time he is, the more likely this is to
be so. (Argument 72)

Ibn Qayyim’s argument here echoes that of other traditionists—such as

al-Shāfiʿī, who is said to have made similar criticisms of the ancient schools
based on rāʾy and local practice—who took their law from “the last genera-
tion” of scholars before them rather than from the Prophet himself.244
Muqallid scholars could, as we have seen in the example of the Ḥanafī
opinions on the waiting period of deserted wives, accomplish consider-
able change in the schools without appearing to challenge their doctrines
by using marginal secondary sources of law, such as custom or necessity,
to displace the opinions of the madhhab.245 Even Calder, who argues that
muqallid scholars had to follow strict guidelines developed by the madhhab
to guide the process of issuing verdicts, admits that, practically speaking,
the correct version of the madhhab for a layman would be the opinion of
his muftī, which might not represent the widespread opinion adopted by
the school.246 One can see the muqallid method on display in the works of
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, who insists that scholars in his time are unable to carry out
scriptural ijtihād but goes on to argue in favor of his opinions on the basis
 Introduction 59

of scriptural proofs and even admits that, if a proof seems weak to scholars
of his rank, they would go back and follow scriptural evidence.247 This,
despite the fact that he states that low-ranking jurists, among whom, he
modestly hints, he too is included, cannot distinguish “the fat from the
lean.”248 Nevertheless, this self-effacing jurist was able—in the nineteenth
century, no less—to change some of the fundamental principles on which
his madhhab had been operating for more than a thousand years, all the
while claiming that he did not carry out any ijtihād.249
It was precisely for such reasons that the preservation of rigid yet illu-
sory hierarchies remained a useful tool for muqallids who sought to con-
demn any call for open ijtihād. This was true in Ibn al-Qayyim’s time, as
scholars violently condemned him for his ijtihād on the law relating to the
triple divorce. It remains true today, as pro-taqlīd scholars attempt to por-
tray Ibn al-Qayyim as a disloyal dissenter from the Islamic legal tradition
because of his criticism of a certain kind of taqlīd. Timothy Winter (Abdal
Hakim Murad) argues against Ibn al-Qayyim:

The overwhelming majority of the scholars of the past—certainly

well over ninety-nine percent of them—have adhered loyally to a
madhhab. It is true that in the troubled fourteenth century a handful
of dissenters appeared, such as Ibn Taymiya and Ibn al Qayyim.250

In reality, as Winter himself acknowledges elsewhere, loyal adherence to a

madhhab never prevented scholars from disagreeing with earlier authori-
ties. Thus, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, even while disagreeing with
previous scholars on occasion, can legitimately be considered loyal
Ḥanbalīs, as well as outstanding mujtahids.251

A Note on This Text

The text translated in this volume is taken from the printed Arabic edition
of the Iʿlām edited by Shaykh Abū ʿUbaydah Mashhūr b. Ḥasan Āl Salmān,
which is the best edition of the work to date. It was published in seven
volumes by Dār Ibn al Jawzī in 1423/2002. The editor is an avid researcher
and ḥadīth specialist, so the Arabic edition is heavily annotated with ḥadīth
references, as well as references to other primary and secondary texts. I
have reproduced only those ḥadīth references of Mashhūr Ḥasan’s that
would be well known to an average English-speaking audience and have
only occasionally included the editor’s own comments.
60 on taqlīd

I have kept the use of Arabic terms to a minimum and have tried to
avoid using square brackets to supply missing words, as these tend to ob-
struct the smooth flow of the text. I do so because I am translating not
words but a language and a text. Key Arabic terms are defined in the glos-
sary. Throughout the main text, legal issues mentioned by Ibn al-Qayyim
that require some explanation have been discussed in footnotes. The word
taqlīd has been translated as “imitation” throughout the text. The word
“Imām,” with initial capital and in roman typeface, refers to the founders
of the schools of law or scholars of a school, while imām, in lower-case
italics, refers to a prayer leader. I have followed Yusuf Ali’s translation of
the Qurʾan but have, at times, taken the liberty of amending his transla-
tion where I felt this allowed Ibn al-Qayyim’s inference from the verse to
become clearer. Citations of the Qurʾan are in square brackets and labeled
“Q.” Throughout the main text, square brackets indicate the page num-
bers corresponding to the Arabic edition of the text.
 An Exposition on Imitation

In the Name of God, Merciful and Compassionate

[3:447] Imitation: Its Three Categories

The Category That Is Forbidden
The Category That Is Obligatory, and
The Category That Is Permissible but Not an Obligation

That Which Is Forbidden

This [imitation that is forbidden, i.e., the] first category, is of three types:
The imitation that is forbidden is, first, that which involves turning
away from what God has revealed, being heedless to it and being content
instead with the imitation of one’s forbears.
Imitating someone whose status as an authority the imitator is uncer-
tain of is also forbidden.
As is the imitation that is performed in the face of established evidence
and after the manifestation of proofs that go against the view of the one
who is imitated.
The difference between the first and this last type of forbidden imita-
tion is that, in the former, a person imitates before he is in command of
knowledge and evidence. Whereas in the latter, a person imitates even
after evidence has appeared before him. The latter, then, is more blame-
worthy and a greater transgression against God and His Messenger.
God, Glory be to Him, condemned these three categories of imitation on
more than one occasion in His Book, as in His, the Most High’s, statement,
62 on taqlīd

When it is said to them, “Follow what God has revealed,” They say, “Never! We
shall follow the ways of our fathers.” What! Even though their fathers were void of
wisdom and guidance? [Q., al-Baqarah, 2:170]. He, the Most High, has also
said, Just in the same way, whenever We sent a warner before you to any people,
the wealthy ones among them said, “We found our fathers following a religion,
and we shall certainly follow in their footsteps.” [448] He would say, “What! Even
if I brought you better guidance than that which you found your fathers follow-
ing?” [Q., al-Zukhruf, 43:23]. The Most High also said, When it is said to
them, “Come to what God has revealed; come to the Messenger,” they say, “Enough
for us are the ways we found our fathers following.” [Q., al-Māʾidah, 5:104].
This condemnation of the one who turns away from what God has re-
vealed and relies instead on imitation of his forbears is repeated frequently
in the Qurʾan.
If it is said, “The one who is condemned is the one who imitates the
disbelievers and his ancestors who were devoid of wisdom and guidance,
while the one who imitates the rightly guided scholars is not condemned
in these verses. Rather, one has been obligated to ask the people of knowl-
edge, these being the scholars. This is exactly what imitating them con-
sists of. For the Most High says: Ask those who possess the Message, if you
know not.” [Q., al-Naḥl, 16:43]. This is a command directing those who do
not have knowledge to imitate those who do.
The response to this is that He, Glory be to Him, condemns whoever
turns away from His Revelation toward imitation of his forbears. The pious
forefathers [salaf] and the four Imāms* were united in their condemnation
and prohibition of this type of imitation. As for the imitation which is done by
someone who exerts himself in [gaining knowledge in order to] follow what
God revealed but despite this some part of knowledge remains concealed
from him, so he imitates someone who is more knowledgeable than himself,
this is praiseworthy, not condemnable. For this he is rewarded and is not
burdened [with a sin]. This will be explained in the forthcoming account deal-
ing with the obligatory and permissible forms of imitation, God willing.
God, The Most High, said, And pursue not that of which you have no
knowledge. [Q., al-Isrāʾ, 17:36]. Now, imitation is not knowledge by consen-
sus of the scholars, as shall appear shortly. He also said, Say, “The things
that my Lord has indeed forbidden are, shameful deeds, whether open or secret;

*
The four Imāms are Abū Ḥanīfah (d. 150/767), Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), al-Shāfiʿī
(d. 204/820), and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), after whom the four main surviving schools
of law in Sunnī Islam are named.
 An Exposition on Imitation 63

sins and trespasses against truth, assigning of partners to God, for which He has
given no authority; and saying that about God of which you have no knowl-
edge.” [Q., al-Aʿrāf, 7:33]. He, the Exalted, also said, Follow the revelation
given unto you from your Lord, and follow not, as friends or protectors, other
than Him. [Q., al-Aʿrāf, 7:3].
So God commanded that revelation alone be followed. But the imitator
has no possible way of knowing that he is imitating only that which has been
revealed. However, if a proof contradicting the opinion of the one he imitates
is made apparent to him, then he does at least know that his continued imita-
tion is in opposition to the evidence and thus falls under following something
besides revelation. God, the Most High, said, If you differ in anything among
yourselves, refer it to God and His Messenger, if you do believe in God and the Last
Day. That is best, and most desirable for the final reckoning. [Q., al-Nisāʾ, 4:59].
So the Exalted One forbids us from referring to someone other than
Him and His Messenger, thus invalidating imitation. God, the Most High,
also said, Or do you think that you shall be abandoned, as though God did not
know those among you who have striven hard and fought, and taken none for
friends and protectors [Ar. walījah] except God, His Messenger, and the (com-
munity of) Believers? [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:16]. But there is no walījah greater
than appointing a specific person [449] to be an arbiter over the Word of
God, His Messenger, and the opinions of the entire community [ummah];
likewise, to accord precedence to him over all of them, and to discard the
Book of God, the Sunnah of His Messenger, and the consensus of the
community in favor of that person’s opinion. The imitator accepts what-
ever agrees with the views of his principal, merely because it happens to
agree with the former, while he is loath to reject the principal’s views,
seeking legal stratagems and fictions [to avoid having to reject them]. If
this is not walījah, then we do not know what else it is! God, the Most
High, said, The Day that their faces will be turned upside down in the Fire,
they will say, “Woe to us! If only we had obeyed God and obeyed the Messenger.”
And they will say, “Our Lord! We obeyed our chiefs and our great ones, and they
misled us as to the (right) Path.” [Q., al-Aḥzāb, 33:66–67].
This explicit text nullifies imitation.
If it is said, “The condemnation in this verse applies only to the one
who is misguided. As for the one who is rightly guided, how can it be said
that this verse condemns him for his imitation [of another]?”
It is to be said, “The answer to this question lies in itself. For a person
is not rightly guided until he follows what God has revealed to His Mes-
senger. So this imitator is rightly guided if he has knowledge of this
64 on taqlīd

revelation. In this case, he is not an imitator. But if he does not know what
God has revealed to His Messenger then, by his own confession, he is ig-
norant and misguided [and therefore, imitates]. How then can he know
that he is rightly guided when the matter relates to his imitation?” This is
the answer to every question raised by the supporters of imitation on this
topic and also to their argument that if they imitate the righteous, then
they themselves are rightly guided.
If it is said, “Because you acknowledge that the scholars who are imi-
tated in the religion are rightly guided, it follows that those who imitate
them must also be rightly guided, because they tread in their footsteps.”
The response is, “The claim of the imitators, that they tread in the foot-
steps of the scholars, completely invalidates their imitation of them. For the
real way of these scholars was to follow the evidences and to forbid imitation
of themselves, as we shall mention when relating their positions on this
issue, God willing. Therefore, whoever ignores evidence and does whatever
these scholars prohibited—and what God and His Messenger forbade even
before that—is not following the path of these scholars at all. Rather, he is
among their adversaries. The only one who can be said to be on their path
is the one who follows the evidence and submits to proof. Such a person
does not appoint a specific individual other than the Messenger whom he
honors above the Book and the Sunnah, opposing these on the basis of his
opinions. [450]. Therefore, this argument exposes the flaw in the reasoning
of the one who posits imitation and following evidence [ittibāʿ] as synony-
mous, thus confusing and muddling up the two. Rather, the imitator is
opposed to following. God, His Messenger, and the people of knowledge
distinguished between these two categories [i.e., imitating and following],
as they are necessarily distinct. Following evidence means adopting the way
of the one who is followed and acting the way he does.”

The Difference between Following Evidence

[Ittibāʿ] and Imitation
In his al-Jāmiʿ, Abū ʿUmar [Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr]* wrote a “Chapter on the Cor-
ruption of Imitation; Its Rejection and the Difference between This and
Following Evidence.”

*
Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf. b. ʿAbd al-Barr al-Namarī (d. 463/1071), a renowned North African tradi-
tionist, often referred to as the Bukhārī of the West.
 An Exposition on Imitation 65

[In it] Abū ʿUmar said, “God condemned imitation at more than one
place in His Book, and He said, They take their priests and their rabbis to be
their lords in derogation of God. [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:31]. It was related from
Ḥudhayfah* and others that he said, ‘They [i.e., the Jews and Christians]
did not worship them alongside God. Rather, the priests and rabbis would
declare things permissible and impermissible for them and they would
follow them in that.’”1
ʿAdī b. Ḥātim† said, “I came to the Messenger of God while there was
a cross around my neck. So he said, [451] ‘O ʿAdī, remove this symbol of
idolatry from your neck,’ and I came to him while he was reciting the
chapter [of the Qurʾan known as] ‘al-Barāʾah,’ until he reached this verse:
They take their priests and their rabbis to be their lords in derogation of God.
[Q., al-Tawbah, 9:31]. So I said, ‘O Messenger of God, we did not take them
as lords.’ He said, ‘You certainly did. Would they not make permissible for
you that which was forbidden [by God], and would you not follow them in
deeming it permissible? And would they not also make forbidden for you
that which was made permissible [by God], and would you not also follow
them in deeming it impermissible?’ I said, ‘Yes, indeed.’ He said, ‘This
was your worship of them.’”2
I say that this ḥadīth is in the Musnad,‡ and there is a longer version of
it in al-Tirmidhī§.
Abū l-Bakhtarī** said (about the Words of the One who is Exalted and
Sublime, They take their priests and their rabbis to be their lords in derogation
of God. [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:31]), “had they commanded the people to worship
them alongside God, the people [452] would not have followed them, but
they issued commands and declared forbidden that which God made per-
missible and vice versa. So the people followed them and this was their
deification of them.”3

*
Ḥudhayfah b. al-Yamān (d. 35/656), a close Companion of the Prophet.
†
ʿAdī b. Ḥātim (d. 67/686), a Companion of the Prophet.
‡
The collection of ḥadīth compiled by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and subsequently added to by other
members of his family.
§
Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Sulamī al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), author of one of the six
most reliable collections of ḥadīth.
**
Wahb b. Wahb b. Kathīr b. ʿAbdallāh b. Zamʿah b. al-ʾAswad b. al-Muṭṭalib b. Asad al-
Qurashī (d. 200/815), a famous jurist.
66 on taqlīd

Wakīʿ* said, “Sufyān† and Aʿmash‡ both narrated to us from Ḥabīb b.

Abī Thābīt§ from Abī al-Bakhtarī, who said that Ḥudhayfah was asked
about the words of God: They take their priests and their rabbis to be their
lords in derogation of God. [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:31], if this meant that they wor-
ship them? He said, ‘No. Rather, they would make permissible for them
the prohibited and would make prohibited for them the permissible.’”
The Most Exalted One also said, Just in the same way, whenever We sent a
warner before you to a nation, the wealthy ones among them said, “We found
our fathers following a religion, and we will certainly follow in their footsteps.”
The Messenger would say, “What! Even if I brought you better guidance than
that which you found your fathers following?” [Q., al-Zukhruf, 43:23–24]. So
their act of following their forefathers [is what] prevented them from ac-
cepting guidance. And further, They said, “For us, we deny that you (Proph-
ets) are sent (on a mission at all) [Q., al-Sabaʾ, 34:34]. It is about these people
and their likes that God, the Exalted and Sublime, said, Then would those
who are followed absolve themselves of those who follow (them). They would see
the punishment, and all relations between them would be severed. And those
who followed would say, “If only we had one more chance, we would absolve
ourselves of them, as they have absolved themselves of us.” Thus will God show
them (the fruits of) their deeds as (nothing but) regrets. [Q., al-Baqarah,
2:166–167]. The Most High also says, in censure and condemnation of
them, “What are these images, to which you are (so assiduously) devoted?”
They said, “We found our fathers worshipping them.” [Q., al-Anbiyāʾ, 21:52–53].
And He says, And they would say, “Our Lord! We obeyed our chiefs and our
great ones, and they misled us as to the (right) Path.” [Q., al-Aḥzāb, 33:67].
There are several examples of this in the Qurʾan, that is, of verses per-
taining to the condemnation of imitation of ancestors and elders. The
scholars argued for the invalidity of imitation based on these verses, and
the disbelief of the ones being referred to therein did not prevent them
from relying on them [to prove the invalidity of imitation, whether by a
Muslim or a disbeliever]. This is because the similarity between the two
groups has nothing to do with the disbelief of one and the belief of another.

*
Abū Sufyān Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ (d. 197/812), a renowned ḥadīth scholar from Kufa.
†
Sufyān b. ʿUyaynah (d. 196/811), one of the leading ḥadīth authorities in early Islam.
‡
Abū Muḥammad Sulaymān b. Mihrān al-Asadī, nicknamed al-Aʿmash (d. 148/796), ḥadīth
scholar and Qur’an commentator.
§
Abū Yaḥyā Ḥabīb b. Abī Thābīt al-Qurashī (d. 120/738), renowned ḥadīth transmitter.
 An Exposition on Imitation 67

Rather, the similarity arises between them as both groups imitate without
proof. For a person may imitate another and become a disbeliever as a
result of his imitation or only commit a sin or merely fall into error in
worldly matters. Each instance in which he imitated without proof is con-
demned. This is because all these examples fall under imitation, and each
[453] resembles the other, even if the relative sin attached to each is differ-
ent. God, the Exalted and Sublime, said, And God will not mislead a people
after He has guided them, so that He may make clear to them what to fear and
avoid. [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:115].
Abū ʿUmar also said, “If imitation is invalidated on account of the ar-
guments we have presented, then what remains is to submit and accept
the principle that is obligatory to accept. And that is the supremacy of the
Book and the Sunnah and whatever conforms to their true meaning if it is
an all-encompassing proof.” Then he continued his words, mentioning
from the path of Kathīr b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʾAmr b. ʿAwf, from his father, from
his grandfather,* who said, “I heard the Messenger of God say, ‘I do not
fear anything for my community after me except three things.’ They said,
‘What are they, Messenger of God?’ He said, ‘I fear for you the mistakes of
scholars, the tyrannical ruler, and those vain desires that are followed.’”4 It
is also related from the Prophet, with the same chain of narration, that he
said, “I have left two things among you, and you will not stray so long as
you hold on to them: the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger.”5

Repercussions of the Mistakes of the Scholar

I further add that the authors who wrote about the Sunnah linked the
topic of the corruption of imitation and its invalidity to the topic of the
mistakes of the scholar, to clarify thus the corruption of imitation, and to
illustrate that the scholar sometimes errs, which is inevitable, as he is not
infallible. Thus, it is not permissible to accept everything he says and to
regard his views as being equal in rank to the views of someone infallible.
This is what every scholar in the world has condemned and prohibited.
They have condemned those who do so, and this is the real woe and tribu-
lation of the imitators. For they imitate the scholar both when he errs and
when he does not. For them, there is nothing to distinguish between these
two states. Inevitably, then, they must take the religion adulterated by

*
ʿAmr b. ʿAwf b. Zayd al-Muzanī (d. 61/680), a Companion of the Prophet.
68 on taqlīd

errors. They thus render permissible what God prohibited and prohibit
what He made permissible, and they legislate that which He did not. This
must be the case for them as the ones they imitate are not immune from
error. [454] They certainly do err. Bayhaqī* and others mentioned this
ḥadīth of Kathīr from his father from his grandfather directly from the
Prophet, “Fear the errors of the scholar and wait for him to recant.”6
And he mentioned from the ḥadīth of Masʿūd b. Saʿd, from Yazīd b. Abī
Ziyād,† from Mujāhid,‡ from Ibn ʿUmar,§ who narrated that the Messenger
of God said, “The three things I fear most for my community are the
errors of the scholar, the hypocrite using the Qurʾan in his argument, and
[pursuit of ] this world, which will [lead you to] smite your [i.e., each others’]
throats.”7
It is well known that the reason for fearing the error of the scholar is
that he will be imitated therein. For if there were no imitation, there would
be no danger of the scholar’s error affecting anyone else.
So, when the imitator knows that what he is following is an error, it is
impermissible for him, by the agreement of all Muslims, to follow the
scholar in that, for this would be tantamount to following an error deliber-
ately. As for the one who does not know of the error, he is excused. Both of
them, however, are transgressing the bounds of their obligations. Shaʿbī**
said, “ʿUmar†† said, ‘Three things blight the age [in which they are found]:
scholars who misguide the people, the hypocrite relying on the Qurʾan in
argument although the Qurʾan itself is truthful, and the errors of the
scholar.’”8 And it has already come earlier [in the Iʿlām] that Muʿādh‡‡ [455]
would not sit in a religious gathering without saying, as he sat, “God is the
Just Ruler, and may the people who doubt perish!,” and in this narration is
also the following, “I warn you of the error of the wise. For Satan sometimes

*
Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Ḥuṣayn al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066), a renowned ḥadīth scholar.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh Yazīd b. Abī Ziyād al-Hāshimī (d. 237/852), a junior Successor.
‡
Abū al-Ḥajjāj Mujāhid b. Jābir al-Makkī (d. 104/722), a famous Successor and commenta-
tor on the Qurʾan.
§
ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar (d. 73/692), a learned Companion and son of the second caliph ʿUmar
b. al-Khaṭṭāb.
**
ʿĀmir Sharaḥīl b. al-Shaʿbī (d. 103/721?) a renowned Successor, who also served as an am-
bassador in the early Umayyad state.
††
ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 23/644), the second caliph after the Prophet.
‡‡
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muʿādh b. Jabal (d. 18/639), a Companion of the Prophet.
 An Exposition on Imitation 69

utters a falsehood through the tongue of a wise person. And sometimes

the hypocrite utters the truth.” The narrator of the report says, “I said to
Muʿādh, ‘May God have mercy on you, how would I know if the wise
person had uttered falsehood and the hypocrite had spoken a word of
truth?’ He said to me, ‘Stay away from the dubious statements of the wise
person, which prompt you to exclaim, What is this? But do not let this turn
you away from him, for he might recant his opinion. And you should
follow the truth when you hear it, for truth is adorned with light.’”9
Al-Bayhaqī mentioned the ḥadīth of Ḥammād b. Zayd,* from Muthannā
b. Saʿīd,† from Abī al-ʿĀliyah,‡ who said that Ibn ʿAbbās§ said, “Woe to
those who follow the slippages of the scholar.” It was said, “How can that
be, Ibn ʿAbbās?” He said, “The scholar says something initially and later
hears a ḥadīth from the Prophet, so he abandons that which he had held
previously”—and in another narration the words are, “of one who is more
knowledgeable about the Messenger of God than him, so he informs the
scholar of it”—and the scholar recants, while those who follow him con-
tinue to rule by what he decided previously.
[456] Tamīm al-Dārī** said, “Fear the errors of the scholar.” So ʿUmar
asked what these were. He said, “He errs before the people, and they
accept his opinion. It might be that the scholar would later repent, while
the people would continue to act according to his incorrect opinion.”
Shuʿbah†† said, narrating from ʿAmr b. Murrah,‡‡ from ʿAbdallāh b.
Salamah,§§ that he said, “Muʿādh b. Jabal said, ‘O Arabs! What would you
do when three things occur? The [pursuit of the] world, which causes you

*
Abū Ismāʿīl Ḥammād b. Zayd b. Dirham (d. 179/795), a famous traditionist.
†
Abū Saʿīd Muthannā b. Saʿīd, a Successor.
‡
Rafīʿ b. Mahrān Abī al-ʿĀliyah al-Riyāḥī, (d. 93/711), a Successor and famed expert on scrip-
ture, who was renowned for his piety.
§
ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās (d. 68/687?), a Companion and cousin of the Prophet, who is famed for
his expertise in ḥadīth and scripture.
**
Abū Ruqayyah Tamīm b. Aws al-Dārī (d. 40/660), a Companion of the Prophet.
††
Abū Bisṭām Shuʿbah b. Ḥajjāj (d. 160/776), a famous traditionist.
‡‡
Abū Maryam ʿAmr b. Murrah al-Juhanī, a Companion who settled in Syria. Most authori-
ties claim that he died during the caliphate of Muʿāwiyah.
§§
ʿAbdallāh b. Salamah al-Hamadānī al-Murādī, a Successor. There is, however, some differ-
ence of opinion among traditionists about the identity of the ʿAbdallāh b. Salamah from
whom ʿAmr b. Murrah reports.
70 on taqlīd

to smite your throats, the errors of the scholar, and the hypocrite arguing
on the basis of the Qurʾan.’” So they were silent, and he said, “As for the
scholar, if he is right, then do not imitate him in your religion, and if he is
overcome by error, then do not become disheartened, for a believer is
sometimes overcome by error, and he then repents. As for the Qurʾan, it
has lampposts like those you find on the pathways, and these are not con-
cealed from anyone. So do not ask about that which you know. And en-
trust whatever creates doubts in your minds to the one who knows about
it. As for the world, whomever God enriches in his heart has indeed suc-
ceeded, and for the one who was not blessed with this, the world is of no
benefit.”10
Abū ʿUmar mentioned the ḥadīth of Ḥuṣayn al-Juʿfī,* from Zāʾidah,†
from ʿAtāʾ b. al-Sāʾib,‡ from Abī al-Bakhtarī, who said that Salmān§ said,
“How would you fare when three things occur: the errors of the scholar,
the hypocrite arguing on the basis of the Qurʾan, and the world [causing
you to] smite your throats? As for the errors of the scholar, if he is right, do
not imitate him in your religion. And as for the hypocrite’s argument, the
Qurʾan has lampposts like the ones you find on the pathways, and these
are not hidden from anyone. So act on whatever you know and refer what
you do not to God. And as for the world [causing you to] smite your throats,
avoid this by looking to the one who is worse off than you and not the one
who is better off than you.”11
[459] Abū ʿUmar said, “The error of the scholar can be compared to the
capsizing of a vessel. If it sinks, it takes many people with it.”
Abū ʿUmar also said, “Since it is true and established that the scholar
errs and makes mistakes, it is not permissible for anyone to issue verdicts
and to hold something to be part of his religion without knowing its basis.”
Yet another author (besides Abū ʿUmar) has said, “As there are three
types of judges [quḍāh], and two will be in Hell and one in Paradise, so too
are there three types of muftīs who issue verdicts, and there is no differ-
ence between them, except that the judge [qāḍī] binds people with his
verdicts and the muftī does not.”

*
Ḥuṣayn b. ʿAlī b. al-Walīd al-Juʿfī (d. 203/819), a renowned traditionist.
†
Abū l-Ṣalt Zāʾidah b. Qudāmah al-Thaqafī (d. 161/777), a ḥadīth scholar.
‡
ʿAtāʾ b. al-Sāʾib b. Zayd al-Thaqafī, a Kufan Successor.
§
Salmān al-Fārsī (d. 31/651), a Companion of the Prophet.
 An Exposition on Imitation 71

Ibn Wahb* said, “I heard Sufyān b. ʿUyaynah narrating from ʿĀṣim b.

Bahdalah,† from Zirr b. Ḥubaysh,‡ from Ibn Masʿūd,§ that he was saying,
‘Be a scholar or a seeker of knowledge but do not be a freeloader who is
neither one nor the other.’” Ibn Wahb said that he asked Sufyān about the
freeloader, so he narrated to him from Abī al-Zanād,** from Abī al-Aḥwas,††
from Ibn Masʿūd, that he said, “In the period of ignorance we would define
a freeloader as someone who was not invited but who turned up to a meal
alongside the one who had been invited. It is the same as the one you refer
to as the muḥaqqib, the one who follows other people in religion, without
proof or evidence.”12 [458]
Abū Zurʿah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAmr al-Naṣrī‡‡ said that Abū Mushir§§
narrated to us that Saīʿd b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz*** narrated to us from Ismāʿīl b.
ʿUbayd Allāh,††† from al-Sāʾib b. Yazīd,‡‡‡ from the sister of Nimr,§§§ that he
heard ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb saying [to the Companions], “Your discourse is
the worst of discourses, for you continue to narrate to the people until it is
said that some scholars say this and others say that, and the Book of God
is abandoned. Whoever among you stands up to speak, let him stand with
the Book of God. If not, let him remain seated.”13 This is the instruction of
ʿUmar [459] to the best of generations on the face of the earth. How would
it fare if he were to learn of how the Book of God, the Sunnah of His

*
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh b. Wahb, the Egyptian (d. 197/812), a leading Egyptian scholar.
†
Abū Bakr ʿĀṣim b. Bahdalah al-Asadī (d. 128/745).
‡
Abū Maryam Zirr b. Ḥubaysh al-Asadī, (d. 83/702, at the age of 120 years), a renowned
Successor.
§
Ibn Masʿūd (d. 32/652), a Companion of the Prophet.
**
Abū al-Zanād ʿAbdallāh b. Dhakwān al-Qurashī (d. 130/748), a ḥadīth expert.
††
Abū l-Aḥwaṣ Sallām b. Sulaym al-Ḥanafī (d. 179/795), ḥadīth transmitter.
‡‡
Abū Zurʿah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʾAmr b. ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣafwān b. ʿAmr al-Naṣrī (d. 281/894),
a Syrian scholar.
§§
Abū Mushar ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Ghassānī (d. 218/833), a leading traditionist in Syria.
***
Abū Muḥammad Saīʿd b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Tanūkhī (d. 167/783), a ḥadīth transmitter.
†††
Ismāʿīl b. ʿUbaydallāh b. Abī al-Muhājir, the client of Banī Makhzūm (d. 232/846), a
renowned traditionist.
‡‡‡
Sāʾib b. Yazīd b. Saʿīd b. Thamāmah b. al-Aswad b. Ukht al-Nimr al-Kinānī (or al-Kindī)
(d. 90/709?). He reportedly accompanied his father to the annual pilgrimage with the
Prophet but was only a child of seven at the time.
§§§
Sister of Nimr, the mother of Sāʾib b. Yazīd.
72 on taqlīd

Messenger and the opinions of his Companions have been abandoned in

favor of the opinions of others in our own times? God save us!

Advice of ʿAlı- to Kumayl b. Ziyad

* - †
Abū ʿUmar said, “ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib said to Kumayl b. Ziyād al-Nakhaʿī—and
this narration is so well-known [mashhūr] among the people of knowledge
that its chain need not be mentioned—‘O Kumayl, these hearts are ves-
sels. The best of them are those receptive to goodness. And there are three
types of people: a scholar devoted to God, a seeker of religious knowledge
on the path to salvation, and the commoner who follows anyone who bel-
lows and inclines to every loud-mouthed bawler. Such people are not en-
lightened with the radiance of knowledge, nor do they stand on firm
ground in support of their stance.’ Then ʿAlī said, ‘Knowledge resides
here,’ and he pointed with his finger toward his chest. He continued,
‘would that I could find those who would acquire it. Rather, I have found
only the kind of person who is quick to comprehend but is not reliable.
Such a one would use the religion to gain worldly profit, seek victory
against the Book of God with His own evidences, and deploy the favors of
God in disobeying Him. Or, I have found the kind of person who carries
the truth but does not know how to nourish it. Doubt makes his heart
quiver as soon as any ambiguity arises. The truth eludes him. Whenever
he says something, he errs, and yet remains unaware of it. He is feverishly
obsessed with that whose reality is beyond him. He is a tribulation for the
one who is influenced by him. The greatest good lies in God bestowing
knowledge of His religion upon someone. It suffices to establish the igno-
rance of such a being that he does not know his own religion.’”

[460] The Companions Forbade Adopting

the Practices of People
Abū ʿUmar mentioned from Abū l-Bakhtarī, who mentioned from ʿAlī,
that he said, “I warn you of adopting the practices of others. For a man
might be performing the actions of the people of Paradise. Then he might

*
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet who later became the
fourth caliph.
†
Kumayl b. Ziyād al-Nakhaʿī, (d. 82/701), a renowned Successor.
 An Exposition on Imitation 73

deviate because of God’s pre-knowledge and would then perform the ac-
tions of the denizens of the Fire, and so, when he dies, he would become
one of them himself. Similarly, a man might be performing the actions of
the people of the Fire. Later, he might deviate because of God’s pre-
knowledge and end up acting like the people of Paradise, and so, when he
dies, he would be one of its dwellers. Should you choose to do this [i.e.,
follow the practices of other people] despite this warning, you [461] ought
to adopt the practices of those who are no more, not those who are still
alive.”14
Ibn Masʿūd said, “No one should imitate another in matters of religion,
lest he come to believe as the other believes and disbelieves as the other
disbelieves. For evil is never a model to be emulated.”15
Abū ʿUmar said, “It is authentically established from the Prophet that
he said, ‘The scholars will disappear. Then, people will adopt the ignorant
ones as their leaders. They will be asked to deliver verdicts and will do so
without knowledge. So they will be misguided and will misguide others.’”16
Abū ʿUmar also said, “All this is said in order to refute imitation and its
invalidity is established for the one who understands these proofs and is
guided by them.”
Then he mentioned from the chain of Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā* that Sufyān
b. ʿUyaynah narrated to us that Rabīʿah† once lay down, hanging his head
low and crying. It was said to him, “Why do you cry?” He said, “Because
of the open display of one’s righteous actions and hidden lusts and be-
cause people act with their scholars like children with their Imāms. They
refrain from whatever these scholars tell them to and perform whatever
they command.”17
[462] ʿAbdallāh b. al-Muʿtazz said, “There is no difference between a
domesticated animal and a man who imitates.”
Then he mentioned from the Jāmiʿ of Ibn Wahb, “Saʿīd b. Abī Ayyūb‡
informed me from Bakr b. ʿAmr,§ from ʿAmr b. Abī Naʿīmah,** from

*
Abū Mūsā Yūnus b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Ṣadafī, (d. 264/877), a renowned Egyptian scholar and
traditionist.
†
Rabīʿah b. Abī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Farrūkh al-Taymī, an early Medinese scholar.
‡
Abū Yaḥyā Saʿīd b. Abī Ayyūb (d. 161/777), a renowned Egyptian traditionist.
§
Bakr b. ʾAmr al-Maʿāfirī, the Egyptian (d. after 140/757), the imām of the grand Mosque in
Cairo.
**
ʿAmr b. Abī Naʿīmah al-Maʿārifī, an Egyptian scholar whose reliability as a narrator is the
subject of some dispute.
74 on taqlīd

Muslim b. Yasār,* from Abū Hurayrah,† that the Messenger said, ‘Who-
ever reports from me something I did not say should choose his place in
the Hellfire. And whoever, upon being asked, proffers advice that was
against the best interests of his brother, has betrayed him. As for the one
who is issued a verdict without a foundation, then the sin of this is on the
one who delivers it.’”18 This ḥadīth has preceded, from the narration of
Abū Dāʾūd‡.
This contains a proof for the prohibition of issuing verdicts on the
basis of imitation, as it is [a form of ] doing the former without evidence.
By consensus of all people, it is only on the basis of evidence that any
ruling is established, as Abū ʿUmar has also said.

An Argument against the One Who Permits

Imitation Based on Speculative Proofs
A group of scholars, jurists, and people of erudition argued against the
one who would validate imitation by relying on logical reasoning, even
after the arguments that have preceded. The best work I have seen in this
regard is the opinion of al-Muzanī§, which I present here. He said that it
ought to be said to the one who rules in favor of imitation, “Do you have a
proof for the judgment you have given on the basis of imitation?” If he
answers in the affirmative, his imitation is naturally invalidated, because
it is the proof that compelled him to issue that judgment, not imitation. If
he says, “I judged this way without proof,” it is said to him, “Why did you
issue judgments on criminal matters where the shedding of the blood of
people is concerned and sexual matters that lead to people’s private parts
being made permissible [or impermissible] and economic matters
wherein, by your verdicts, you destroyed the wealth of the people, while
God made all this unlawful, except on the basis of proof. God says, You

*
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muslim b. Yāsir, the client of Banū ʿUmayyah (d. 100/718), a Successor from
Basra.
†
Abū Hurayrah al-Dawsi (d. c. 59/679), a Companion of the Prophet and a leading trans-
mitter of ḥadīth.
‡
Abū Dāūd Sulaymān b. al-Ashʿath al-Sijistānī (d. 275/888), one of the six leading tradition-
ists and author of the Sunan which bears his name.
§
Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā al-Muzanī (d. 264/877), the leading student of al-Shāfiʿī, who
spread the teachings of his master in Egypt.
 An Exposition on Imitation 75

have no authority for this! [Q., Yūnus, 10:68] [463], which means, no proof
for this.”
If he says, “I know that I am correct, even if I do not know the proof,
because I have imitated a scholar of high stature, and he does not base his
opinion except on a proof that is concealed from me,” it is said to him, “If
imitation of your teacher is allowed because he gives his opinions on the
basis of proofs which are concealed from you, then imitation of your
teacher’s teacher is preferable. Because he would not have based his opin-
ion on anything other than a proof which was concealed from your teacher,
just as the latter would not have said what he said except on the basis of a
proof that is concealed from you.” If he says, “Yes,” he has abandoned
imitation of his teacher in favor of that of his teacher’s teacher and so on,
until he reaches the Companions of the Messenger.
If he does not do this, his claim is self-contradictory. It is then said to
him: “How have you declared imitation of the one who is lower in stature
and possesses lesser knowledge to be permissible, while you prohibit imi-
tation of one who was higher in stature and more knowledgeable, when
this is clearly contradictory?” If he says, “Because my teacher, even if he
was of a lower stature, acquired the knowledge of those who were before
him. He therefore has more insight about that which he has acquired
from them and that which he has not,” it is said to him, “Likewise, the one
who learnt from your teacher, he too combined his own knowledge and
that of those who were before him. So it becomes obligatory on you to
imitate him and to abandon imitation of your teacher. Otherwise, you are
more worthy of imitation than your teacher, because you have gathered
his knowledge and that of those before him.” If he calls for his own state-
ment to be imitated, he has rendered the lesser scholars and the ones who
narrate from them more worthy of imitation than the Companions of the
Messenger. Likewise, he would oblige the Companion to imitate the Suc-
cessor [tābiʿī]*, and the Successor to imitate those lower than him in their
analogies. He would also say that those higher in rank should always con-
tinue to imitate those who are lower. This much is sufficient to establish
the contradiction and corruption of this view.
Abū ʿUmar said, “The people of knowledge and erudition said that the
mark of knowledge is clarification and to grasp that which is known just
as it is. Therefore, when something is clarified to someone it can be said

*
A Successor is a disciple of a Companion of the Prophet.
76 on taqlīd

that he knows it.” They also said that the imitator has no knowledge. They
did not disagree about this. Perhaps it is on the basis of this that al-Bakhtarī
said—although God knows best—[464]

The scholars know your merit in knowledge

While the ignorant ones call for imitation
And I see mankind agreeing on your merits
The masters and their slaves altogether.

Imitation and Following [Ittibāʿ]

Abū ʿAbdallāh b. Khwāzmandād al-Baṣrī al-Mālikī* said, “Imitation in
sacred law [sharʿ] means adopting an opinion for which the person who
holds it has no evidence. This is disallowed in the sacred law, whereas
ittibāʿ means doing that for which proof has been established.”
Elsewhere in his book he said, “You are an imitator of everyone whose
opinion you follow without there being a proof that necessitates that. Imi-
tation in the religion of God is not correct. And you are a follower of the
person whose proofs compel you to follow his opinion. Following [ittibāʿ]
in the religion is allowed and imitation is not.”
He also said that Muḥammad b. Ḥārith† said, in the Akhbār of Saḥnūn
b. Sa‘īd‡ from him, that he said that Mālik, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Salamah§,
Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Dīnār** and others used to refer their disagree-
ments to Ibn Hurmuz††. When Mālik and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz asked him a ques-
tion, he answered them. But when Ibn Dīnār and his likes asked him a

*
Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Khwāzmandād al-Baṣrī. A Mālikī scholar,
(d. c. 390/1000).
†
Muḥammad b. Ḥārith b. Asad al-Khushanī (d. 161/777), a renowned scholar and littera-
teur.
‡
ʿAbd al-Salām Saḥnūn b. Saʿīd b. Ḥabīb al-Tanūkhī (d. 240/854), the leading Mālikī scholar
of his day.
§
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Salamah b. Dīnār (d. 184/800), a renowned Medinese jurist.
**
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Dīnār al-Juhanī, (d. 182/798). A Medinese jurist
and contemporary of Mālik.
††
Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh Yazīd b. Hurmuz al-Aṣamm (d. 184/800), one of the leading Succes-
sors in Medina.
 An Exposition on Imitation 77

question, he did not. So Ibn Dīnār came across him one day and said, “O
Abū Bakr, why did you do treat me so indecorously?” He [Abū Bakr] said,
“My nephew, how is that?” He said, “Mālik and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz asked you a
question, and you answered them, but when my company and I asked a
question, you did not.” He said, “Did such a thought indeed arise in your
heart, nephew?” He said, “Yes.” He said, “I am advanced in years, and my
bones have grown thin with age, and I am afraid that something similar to
what has happened to my body might have happened to my intellect.
Mālik and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz are both knowledgeable jurists. If they hear the
correct view from me, they would accept it, and if they hear from me that
which is incorrect, they would abandon it. As for you and your peers, you
would accept any response I issue.” Ibn al-Ḥārith said, “By God, this state-
ment indicates the perfection of the religion [of Ibn Hurmuz ] and a
sound, astute intellect, unlike the one who [465] brings forth nonsense
and desires his own opinions to be imprinted on the hearts of people as
though they were like the Qurʾan.”
Abū ʿUmar wrote the following response to the one who argues for
imitation: “Why do you call for it and thus oppose the pious forbears in
this, since they never performed imitation?” If he says, “I imitate because
I lack complete knowledge about the interpretation of the Book of God
and the Sunnah of the Messenger, while the one I imitate knew all of this.
So I imitate the one who was more knowledgeable than myself,” it is to be
said to him, “When the scholars agree on an interpretation of the Book, a
report from the Sunnah of the Prophet, or when their opinions on a matter
coincide, then that is the indisputable truth. But they disagreed with each
other about the matter in which you imitated one of them. So what is your
proof for imitating one and not others when all of them are scholars? It
might be that the one whose opinion you rejected was more knowledge-
able than the one whose opinion you embraced.”
If he says, “I imitate him because I know that he was correct,” it is
then to be said to him, “Do you know this based on evidence from the
Book and the Sunnah or from consensus?” If he says, “Yes,” then his
imitation is nullified, and he is then to be questioned on the basis of the
proof he presents. But if he says: “I imitate him because he was more
knowledgeable than I am,” then it is to be said to him, “Then imitate ev-
eryone who was more knowledgeable than you. Surely, you will find many
people who fit this description. Do not appoint one individual as the only
one you will imitate and no other, if your proof is only that he knows
more than you.”
78 on taqlīd

If he says, “I imitate him because he was the most knowledgeable of

men,” it is to be said to him, “Was he, then, more knowledgeable than the
Companions?” Such a statement alone is sufficient to establish the repre-
hensibility of what he says. If the imitator says, “I do [indirectly] imitate
some of the Companions,” it is to be said to him, “What is your proof for
abandoning the views of those whom you do not imitate? It might be that
the one whose opinion you have abandoned was more knowledgeable
than the one whose opinions you adopted. All this is based on the fact that
an opinion is not correct by virtue of its bearer but because of the sound-
ness of the proofs that establish its validity.”
Ibn Muzayyin* said, from ʿĪsa b. Dīnār,† that Ibn al-Qāsim‡ said from
Mālik, “Not every opinion of a man is to be followed, even if he possesses
special merit. For God says, those who listen to the Word, and follow the best
(meaning) in it—those are the ones whom Allah has guided, and those are the
ones endued with understanding. [Q., al-Zumar, 39:18]. If he says [466], “My
paucity and lack of knowledge compel me to imitate,” it is to be said to
him, “The imitation of a scholar about whose knowledge of the revelation
everyone is agreed on is excusable, provided that he just transmits that
which was narrated to him.” This is what he was obliged to do, and he
acted as he ought to have, by deriving rulings from revelation in this way.
There was no choice available to him but to imitate the scholar where he
himself had no knowledge. This is due to the consensus of the Muslims
that the blind are to imitate the person whose statement is trusted—to
ascertain the direction of the Sacred Mosque when they are praying—
because they can do no more than this. But can it be permissible, for the
one who is truly in this condition, to issue legal verdicts pertaining to the
laws of God’s religion, and to direct others through his verdicts to regard
as lawful [or not] all kinds of sexual matters, the shedding of blood, en-
slavement, destruction of property and rendering it to the one to whom it
does not belong, all based on a view [i.e., that of his principal] about the
truth of which he himself does not know, and for which he has been able
to establish no proof? Especially since he acknowledges all along that the

*
Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm b. Muzayyin (d. c. 300/912), an Andalusian scholar, who also commented
on Mālik’s works.
†
Abū Muḥammad ʿĪsa b. Dīnār, (d. 212/827), an Andalusian scholar and student of Ibn
al-Qāsim.
‡
Ibn al-Qāsim (d. 191/806), a leading disciple of Mālik.
 An Exposition on Imitation 79

one whose opinion he follows did make mistakes on some occasions and
was correct on others and that the one who disagreed with him in this
particular matter is perhaps the one who is more correct therein. Now, if
this person accepts that issuing verdicts is allowed for the [imitator] who
is ignorant of the proofs and of their true meaning, simply because he has
memorized the rulings related to trivial matters, he must concede that this
right to issue verdicts should also be granted to everyone. Such an out-
come is sufficient to establish the nullity of such a view and its opposition
to the Qurʾan. God, the Most High says, And pursue not that of which you
have no knowledge [al-Isrāʾ, 36], and He says Do you say that about God
which you know not? [Q., Yūnus, 10:68].
The scholars are agreed that whatever is unclear and does not give rise
to certainty is not knowledge—rather, it is mere conjecture, and conjec-
ture cannot be a substitute for the truth. Then he mentioned the ḥadīth of
Ibn ʿAbbās (in both its marfūʿ* and mawqūf † forms): “Whoever issues a
verdict relating to something of which he has no knowledge shall bear the
sin of it.”19 He also said, “It is established that the Prophet, may the peace
and blessings of God be on him, said, ‘Beware of conjecture, for conjec-
ture is the most untruthful type of speech.’”20 [467]
He also said that there is no dispute between the scholars of the prov-
inces about the nullity of imitation. Then he mentioned, from the path of
Ibn Wahb, “Yūnus narrated to me from Ibn Shahāb that Abū ʿUthmān b.
Sannah‡ informed me that the Messenger of God, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, said, ‘Knowledge began as something strange,
and it shall return to being something strange, as it began. So there are
glad tidings for the estranged.’”21 He also narrated from the path of Kathīr
b. ʿAbdallāh,§ from his father, from his grandfather, that the Prophet, may
the peace and blessings of God be on him, said, “Islam began as some-
thing strange, and it shall return to being something strange, as it began.
So there are glad tidings for the estranged.” He was asked, “O Messenger

*
A ḥadīth whose chain is “elevated” all the way to the Prophet himself.
†
A ḥadīth whose chain stops at a Companion.
‡
Abū ʿUthmān b. Sannah al Khuzāʿī. While some authorities claim he was a Companion
who accepted Islam toward the end of the Prophet’s life, Ibn Ḥajar and others regard him as
a Successor only.
§
Kathīr b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr b. ʿAwf, who narrated around the middle of the second Islamic
century (the end of the eighth century CE).
80 on taqlīd

of God, who are the estranged?” He said, “The ones who revive my Sunnah
and teach it to the people.”22
It was said [468] that the scholars are the estranged ones because of the
prevalence of those who are ignorant. Then he narrated from Mālik b.
Zayd b. Aslam his interpretation of the Words of the Most Exalted One,
We raise whom We will, degree after degree [Q., al-Anʿām, 6:83], that this was
“because of knowledge.” Ibn ʿAbbās said, interpreting the Words of God,
the Exalted, God will raise, to (suitable) ranks (and degrees), those of you who
believe and who have been granted knowledge [Q., al-Mujādalah, 58:11], that
this means, “God elevates those Believers who have been granted knowl-
edge above those who have not, by degrees.” [469]
Hishām b. Saʿd* narrated from Zayd b. Aslam† about the interpretation
of His Words, Those Messengers! We preferred some of them to others [Q., al-
Baqarah, 2:253], that this was by virtue of their knowledge. So, if the imita-
tor is not among the knowledgeable ones, which he is not by agreement of
the scholars, then he does not fall under these texts. God alone grants
success.

The Principals of the Four Schools Forbade

Imitation of Themselves
It is established that the four Imāms proscribed imitation of themselves
and condemned those who adopted their rulings without understanding
the reasons behind them. As al-Shāfiʿī said, “The similitude of the one
who seeks knowledge without understanding is that of the woodcutter
who works during the night. He carries a load of sticks, and in them there
could be a snake that could strike him without his knowledge.” Al-Bayhaqī
mentioned this statement.
Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā al-Muzanī says, in the first part of his Mukhtaṣar,
“I have summarized what follows from the knowledge of al-Shāfiʿī, and
the import of what he says is that he will share this knowledge with the

*
Hishām b. Saʿd al-Qurashī (d. 160/777), a traditionist who died in the first year of the caliph
al-Mahdī.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh Zayd b. Aslam al-ʿUmarī, (d. 136/754), a highly regarded traditionist who
used to lecture in the Prophet’s mosque.
 An Exposition on Imitation 81

one who wants it, while also narrating al-Shāfiʿī’s well-known prohibition
of imitation of himself and others, so that everyone can gain knowledge to
save his religion and protect himself [by acquisition of this knowledge].”
Abū Dāʾūd said, “I asked Aḥmad, ‘Does al-Awzāʿī* deserve to be fol-
lowed more than Mālik?’ He said, ‘Do not imitate anyone among them in
matters of the religion. Rather, take that which comes from the Prophet
and his Companions and then the Successors. After them, one has the
option to accept or reject the opinion of everyone else.’”
Aḥmad did, however, insist on the difference between imitation and
following. Abū Dāʾūd says that he heard Aḥmad say, “Ittibāʿ is that a
person follows what is related from the Prophet and his Companions.
After that, it is his right to choose from among the Successors.” Aḥmad
also said, “Do not imitate me, Mālik, al-Thawrī†, or al-Awzāʿī. Rather, take
knowledge from where they took it.” [470] He also said, “It is among the
signs of a man’s lack of wisdom that he follows others in matters of reli-
gion.”
Bishr b. al-Walīd‡ said that Abū Yūsuf § said, “It is not permissible for
anyone to say what we have said without knowing the reasons why we said
so.”23
Mālik said explicitly that the one who abandons a ruling of ʿUmar b.
al-Khaṭṭāb in favor of a ruling of Ibrāhīm al-Nakhāʿī** should repent for
doing so. But then, what about the one who abandons the command of
God and His Messenger in favor of someone who is not even of the rank
of Ibrāhīm or others [among the Successors] who were equal to him?
Jaʿfar al-Firyābī†† said that Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī‡‡ narrated to
him that al-Haytham b. Jamīl§§ narrated to him that he said to Mālik b.

*
Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAmr al-Awzāʿī (d. 157/774), a renowned jurist from Syria.
†
Sufyān b. Saʿīd al-Thawrī (d. 161/778), renowned traditionist and scholar.
‡
Abū l-Walīd Bishr b. al-Walīd b. Khālid al-Kindī (d. 238/853), a renowned Ḥanafī scholar
and disciple of Abū Yūsuf.
§
Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm (d. 182/798), the foremost disciple of Abū Ḥanīfah.
**
Abū ʿImrān Ibrāhīm b. Yazīd al-Nakhāʿī (d. 96/715), renowned jurist from Iraq.
††
Jaʿfar al-Firyābī (d. 301/914), a judge and traditionist, who died at the age of ninety-four.
‡‡
Abū ʿAbdallāh Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī (d. c. 248/862), a traditionist.
§§
Abū Sahl al-Haytham b. Jamīl (d. 214/829), a scholar who narrates from Sufyān b.
ʿUyaynah and Mālik, among others.
82 on taqlīd

Anas, “O father of ʿAbdallāh, there are people among us who have put
aside the study of books, saying instead, ‘so-and-so narrates that ʿUmar b.
al Khaṭṭāb said thus,’ and another one of them says that ‘Ibrāhīm said
thus, and we act according to the stance of Ibrāhīm.’” Mālik asked, “Has
the statement of ʿUmar been established as authentic by them?” I said, “It
is a report as authentic to them as that of Ibrāhīm.” Mālik delivered his
ruling, saying, “These people must repent.”24 And God, the Most High,
knows best.
 A Disputation between an Imitator
and His Adversary

an account of a debate between an imitator and one who submits to

proofs wherever they may be:

1. The imitator says, “We are the party of imitation, acting by the
command of God to Ask the people of knowledge if you are ignorant.
[Q., al-Naḥl, 16:43]. God, the exalted, Himself commands those
who do not know to ask those who are more knowledgeable than
them. This is the clear text of the Qurʾan, upon which we base our
actions.”
2. The Prophet, may God’s peace and blessings be on him, directed the
one who did not know to ask someone who did. As he said in the
ḥadīth [known as the ḥadīth] of Shajjah, “Why did you not ask if you
did not know? Indeed the cure of [471] ignorance is to ask.”1
3. The father of the laborer who had committed zinā* with the wife of his
employer said, “I asked the people [472] of knowledge [about the pun-
ishment due to my son], and they informed me that my son was to be
awarded a hundred lashes and was to be exiled for a year and that the
woman with whom he had committed illegal intercourse was to be
stoned.”2 We see that he was not prevented from imitating those who
were more knowledgeable than him.†

*
Unlawful sexual intercourse, which refers to all sexual activity outside a valid marriage.
†
The reason for the difference in punishment is the difference in the marital status of the
two parties. A married person who commits zinā is stoned, while the unmarried offender
receives one hundred lashes.
84 on taqlīd

4. Another example is that of ʿUmar, who is among the most knowledge-

able people on earth, yet he imitated Abū Bakr*. For Shuʿbah relates,
on the authority of ʿĀṣim, from al-Shaʿbī, that Abū Bakr issued a ruling
about the inheritance of the one who dies in the state known as al-
kalālah, saying, “I have given a ruling in this case. If it is correct, then
that is from God, and if it is wrong, then that is from me and from the
devil, and God is free of it. As for kalālah, it is when a person dies
without a father or a son.”† Now ʿUmar b. al Khaṭṭāb said, “I would be
belittled in the sight of God if I were to oppose a ruling of Abū Bakr.”3
It is also authentically reported from him that he said, about Abū Bakr,
“Our judgment is in obedience to yours.” [473]
5. It is also reported authentically, from Ibn Masʿūd, that he used to
adopt the rulings of ʿUmar.
6. Al-Shaʿbī reports from Masrūq‡, “Six of the Companions of the
Prophet used to issue legal rulings to the people, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿUmar
b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿAlī, Zayd b. Thābit§, ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb,** and Abū Mūsā††.
Out of these, three would abandon their own rulings for the rulings of
three others: ʿAbdallāh [i.e., Ibn Masʿūd] would abandon his own rul-
ings for those of ʿUmar, Abū Mūsa for those of ʿAlī, and Zayd for those
of ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb.”4 Jundub‡‡ said, “I would not abandon a ruling de-
livered by Ibn Masʿūd for the ruling of anyone else.”
7. The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, [474]
said, “Muʿādh has established a practice for you, so do as he does.”5 He
said this about the case of a delayed prayer, of which the part which
was not prayed with the imām is prayed after the imām has finished
his prayer, whereas the practice before Muʿādh’s action was for the
people to pray what they had missed first and then commence prayer
with the imām. The imitator [continues his argument], “God, the most

*
Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (d. 13/634), the “truthful one,” the closest Companion of the Prophet
and the first caliph.
†
Kalālah is the state of a person who dies without ascendants or descendants who may in-
herit from him.
‡
Abū ʿĀʾishah Masrūq b. al-Ajdaʿ al-Hamadānī (d. c. 63/683), a Successor.
§
Zayd b. Thābit al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Anṣārī (d. c, 45/666), a Companion who was instrumental in
the compilation of the Qurʾan.
**
ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb (d. 28/649), a renowned Companion.
††
Abū Mūsā ʿAbdallāh b. Qays al-Ashʿarī (d. c. 42/662), a famous Companion.
‡‡
Jundub (d. c. 70/689), a Companion of the Prophet.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 85

High, has commanded obedience to Himself, to His Messenger and

to those in authority, by which is meant the religious scholars, or the
religious scholars and the rulers. So obedience to them lies in imitat-
ing them in their religious verdicts, for if there was no imitation, there
could be no obedience specifically to them.”
9. God, the most High says, The foremost of those to embrace Islam of those
who forsook (their homes) and of those who gave them aid, and (also) those
who follow them in (all) good deeds, well-pleased is God with them, as are
they with Him [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:100], and imitation of them is the ful-
fillment of the command to follow them, so those whom God Himself
is pleased with should be imitated. The well known ḥadīth, “My Com-
panions are like the stars—whichever of them you follow, you will be
guided,”6 is sufficient proof of this view. [475–477].
10. ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd said, “Whoever performs a religious act, let it be
in accordance with the practice of those who have already passed away.
For the living can never be secure from error. The ones who should be
followed are the Companions of Muḥammad, who have the most righ-
teous hearts of this community. They have the most insight and
knowledge, and are the least affected of them. They are a people whom
God chose for companionship of His Prophet and for the establish-
ment of His religion. Hold on to their guidance and recognize their
merits, for they are upon the straight, right path.” [478].
11. It is authentically reported from the Prophet, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, that he said, “Follow my Sunnah and
the Sunnah of the righteous Caliphs after me,”7 and also that he,
may the peace and blessings of God be on him, said, “Judge accord-
ing to the ones after me, Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, and receive guidance
[479] from ʿAmmār,* and hold fast to the oath of ʿAbdallāh.”
12. Further, ʿUmar wrote to Shurayḥ† that he was to judge according to
what was in the Book of God, and if a solution was not be found in it,
then it was to be sought from the Sunnah of the Messenger of God,
may the peace and blessings of God be on him, and if a solution was
not be found in this either, then he was to judge according to the deci-
sions of the righteous ones.8

*
ʿAmmār b. Yāsir al-ʿAnsī, (d. 37/657), a Companion who died in battle, at the age of ninety-
three.
†
Shurayḥ b. Ḥārith b. Jahm al-Kindī (d. c. 78/697), a Successor who gained fame as a judge.
86 on taqlīd

13. ʿUmar forbade the sale of slave women who had borne children to
their masters,9 and the Companions followed him in this, and he en-
forced the triple divorce [as an irrevocable divorce],10 and the Compan-
ions followed him in this also.* Once, when he had a wet dream, ʿAmr
b. al-ʿĀṣ† told him to put on another garment,‡ but he replied that if he
did so, it would become a sunnah.11
14. ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb and other [480] Companions used to say, “Act accord-
ing to that which is clear to you, and entrust whatever seems ambigu-
ous to you to the one who knows about it.”12
15. The Companions also used to deliver legal verdicts while the Prophet,
may the peace and blessings of God be on him, was still alive. These
verdicts were accepted purely on the basis of imitation, because their
own verdicts had no legal standing during the life of the Prophet, may
the peace and blessings of God be on him.
16. And God, the most High, says, Nor should the Believers all go forth to-
gether, if a contingent from every expedition remained behind, they could
devote themselves to studies in religion, and admonish the people when they
return to them, that thus they (may learn) to guard themselves (against
evil). [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:122]. So He obligated this party of Believers to
accept whatever they were warned with when they returned to them.
This amounts to imitation of the scholars among the Companions.
17. It is authentically reported from Ibn al-Zubayr§ that he was asked
about the inheritance share of the grandfather existing alongside the
brothers of the deceased. He said, “As for the one about whom the
Messenger, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, said, ‘If I
were to take a friend among the people of the earth, I would take him
as a friend’”13; he [Abū Bakr] treated the grandfather like the father.**
This is blatant imitation of him.

*
An irrevocable divorce is one that is issued thrice over a period of three menstrual cycles.
ʿUmar enforced a triple divorce issued in a single sitting.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ al-Sahmī (d. c. 42/663), a Companion who conquered and
subsequently served as the governor of Egypt.
‡
Having a wet dream nullifies one’s state of ritual purity and requires that one’s body and
clothes be purified.
§
ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr b. ʿAwwām (d. 73/629), grandson of the caliph Abū Bakr who estab-
lished a rival caliphate in Mecca, during the reign of the Umayyads.
**
The Companions held various views on whether or not a grandfather acted like a father in
blocking collateral relatives such as brothers and sisters from inheriting their shares of in-
heritance. Abū Bakr held the view that he did. Out of the four schools, only the Ḥanafīs rule
according to the opinion of Abū Bakr. Ibn al-Qayyim also defends this view in the Iʿlām.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 87

18. God, the Most Perfect, [also] commanded that the testimony of the
witness be accepted and this also involves imitating the witness.
19. The sacred law dictates acceptance of the one who estimates quanti-
ties of foodstuff, the one who tracks footsteps, and the one who traces
the genealogy of people by examining their visages. The law also dic-
tates accepting the judgment of the one who divides items for sale,
quantifies damages in [481] foodstuffs and other goods, and the two
people who decide on the likeness of an animal in awarding compen-
sation for [the sin of ] hunting in a state of ritual consecration [iḥrām].*
All this is pure imitation.
20. The community is agreed on the permissibility of accepting the state-
ment of a translator, a messenger, a genealogist, and the regulator,
even if they disagreed about whether or not reliance could be placed
on just one of them. This is pure imitation of them.
21. The community also agreed on the permissibility of buying different
types of meat, garments, edibles, and other things without asking
questions about their permissibility or impermissibility, and this is
done in imitation of the owners of these things.
22. If everyone were obligated to perform ijtihād and be exceptional schol-
ars, man’s well-being would come to an end, and material progress
and commerce would be suspended. It is possible neither in sacred
law nor in the divine will [qadr] (which prevents such a thing from oc-
curring), for everyone to become a mujtahid.
23. People are agreed that the groom imitates [i.e., he is led by] the women
who direct him to his wife, and his having intercourse with her is per-
missible in imitation [of their indication to him] that she is his wife.
24. Everyone also agrees that in the matter of facing the Holy Mosque for
ritual prayers, a blind man imitates the one who can see; likewise ev-
eryone agrees that the prayer leaders are imitated in matters of purifi-
cation and recitation of the Opening Chapter of the Qurʾan and all
those acts of prayer wherein it is proper for them to be followed. Like-
wise the wife (whether or not she is Muslim), is imitated about the
acceptance of the fact that her menstruation has ceased, and restora-
tion of permissible sexual relations with her is based on imitation of
her. Similarly, it is permissible for a guardian to marry his female

*
The killing of any creature by a person in a state of ritual consecration is prohibited. A
person who hunts in this state must offer penance by sacrificing an animal that has been
judged by two people to be a suitable offering.
88 on taqlīd

ward once he accepts, having imitated her, that her waiting period is
over, and this too is done by imitating her.
25. Similarly, everyone agrees on the permissibility of people performing
imitation of the muezzin about the commencement of the times of
prayer. Here too, ijtihād is not compulsory on the people, nor is it com-
pulsory for them to know the signs that indicate the time of prayer.
26. A dark-skinned woman said to ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith*, “I breast-fed both
you and your wife.Ӡ So the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of
God be on him, ordered ʿUqbah to separate from his wife and ordered
him to imitate the woman by accepting the information she had con-
veyed to him.14
27. The scholars were explicit about the permissibility of imitation. Ḥafṣ
b. Ghiyāth‡ said, “I heard Sufyān say, ‘If you see a man performing an
act whose permissibility is uncertain, then do not stop him, even if
you believe his act to be forbidden.’” [482] Muḥammad b. Ḥasan§ said,
“It is permissible for the scholar to imitate one who is more knowl-
edgeable than him, but it is impermissible for him to imitate one who
is his equal in knowledge.”
28. Al-Shāfiʿī, too, explicitly maintained the permissibility of imitation,
when he issued a ruling regarding the rib bone broken [as a result of
assault], that the compensation for it was a camel and added that he
had said this imitating ʿUmar. He said, about the matter of selling an
animal with the claim that it is free of defects, that he had said this
imitating ʿUthmān**. He also said, regarding the matter of the grand-
father inheriting alongside the brothers of the deceased, that he [i.e.,
the grandfather] shares with them [i.e., the brothers]. Then he said, “I
have said this because of the opinion of Zayd, and it is from him that
we get most of our knowledge of the law of inheritance.” In yet an-
other place in his later writings he said, “I said this imitating ʿAtāʾ††.”

*
Abū Sarwaʿah ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith b. ʿĀmir b. Nawfal b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Quṣayy, a Compan-
ion who died during the caliphate of Ibn al-Zubayr.
†
Marriage is prohibited between two individuals who, as children, were breast-fed by the
same woman.
‡
Abū ʿUmar Ḥafṣ b. Ghiyāth al-Nakhaʿī al-Tamīmī (d. 194/810), a judge.
§
Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Farqad al-Shaybānī (d. 189/804),a student of Abū Ḥanīfah.
**
ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (d. 35/656), a Companion and the third caliph after the Prophet.
††
ʿAtāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. 114/732), a renowned early Successor.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 89

29. Here, [consider also] Abū Ḥanīfah, may God have mercy on him,
about his opinion on the legal issues related to [the purification of ]
wells*. He has no support for his view in this matter, except that which
is based on imitation of what the predecessors among the Successors
had said about it. Neither did Mālik depart from the practice of the
people of Medina. He also said clearly in his book The Well Trodden
Path [al-Mawaṭṭaʾ] that he “found this to be the practice” and that “this
was what was done by the people of knowledge in our city.” He said,
on more than one occasion, “I have not seen anyone whom I follow
acting thus.” If we were to gather all the examples of this from his
works, it would become too lengthy. Furthermore, al-Shāfiʿī said, re-
garding the Companions, “Their views are preferable to us over our
own views.” Similarly, we [the proponents of imitation] affirm that the
views of al-Shāfiʿī and the scholars around him are dearer to us than
our own views.
30. [Further, the imitator argues,] “God, glory be to Him, created in the
minds of his servants a natural disposition to imitate their teachers
and scholars. This is something common to all disciplines and profes-
sions, and it enables a great social benefit to be achieved.”
31. God, glory be to Him, has also distinguished between the mental abil-
ities of people, just as He has distinguished between their physical
abilities. He, in His wisdom, justice, and mercy, does not desire to
make it obligatory on all His creation to know the truth or to respond
to that which opposes it in every matter, minor and major, based on
evidence. If He had decreed this, each and every man would have been
a scholar. Rather, God makes one person a scholar, another a seeker of
knowledge, and yet another a follower of a scholar, just as the worship-
per follows the imām in prayer, and one person follows the path of
another. Has God prohibited the ignorant one from being a follower
of a scholar (whom he imitates), doing whatever the scholar does?
God, the Most Perfect, knows that new matters always arise before
people. Has He therefore specifically obligated everyone to derive a
legal ruling relating to a new matter from the divine proofs (according
to all the proper procedures and conditions)? Is this even possible, let
alone a requirement of the law?

*
This refers to the issue of how to purify a well that has been contaminated with an impure
substance, such as an animal carcass.
90 on taqlīd

32. Consider the Companions of the Prophet, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be on him, who conquered new lands wherein those who
had recently embraced Islam would seek verdicts from them. [483].
They would issue these verdicts and would not refuse to do so by
saying, “You must seek the truth in this verdict through examination
of the evidence.” This is not reported from a single one of them. So
is imitation, then, anything other than a necessary accompaniment
to moral obligation and responsibility, and a concomitant of exis-
tence? It is indeed a necessity that flows from the law and from
divine decree. Those who deny it are themselves forced to accept it.
This is what came earlier [in the Iʿlām] in the discussion on rulings
and elsewhere.
33. [The imitator continues,] “We say to the one who seeks to prove the
invalidity of imitation, ‘For every narration that you use as proof for
your argument, you rely on its chain of narrators, and thus you imi-
tate them. In the absence of any clear proof of their truthfulness,
you have no option but to imitate the narrator. Similarly the adjudi-
cator has no option but to imitate a witness, and so too, the ordinary
man has no option but to imitate a scholar. So what makes it per-
missible for you to imitate the narrator and the witness while pre-
venting us from imitating a scholar? Just as the former hears with
his ears that which he narrates, so too the latter understands with
his heart that which he hears. The former then recounts what he
heard and the latter what he understood, as is obligatory upon them
both. Thus, whoever is not of their rank must accept what both of
them convey.’”
34. [The imitator ends,] “Then it is said to those who warn against imi-
tation, ‘You only forbid it because of the fear that the one who imi-
tates will fall into error, if the one whom he imitates has erred in
his verdicts. But then you oblige him to consider and evaluate evi-
dence in search of the truth. There can be no doubt, however, that
the likelihood of his being right is greater if he imitates a scholar
than if he makes ijtihād for himself. This is like the case of some-
one who wishes to buy an item of which he has no knowledge, so if
he imitates someone who is knowledgeable about that item and
who, in addition, is trustworthy and sincere in giving advice, then
he is more likely to achieve exactly what he desires than if he relies
on his own reasoning. This is something on which all right-minded
people agree.’”
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 91

A Refutation of the Arguments of the Proponents

of Imitation
The interlocutor who favors reliance on proofs says, “How eccentric you
are, O people of imitation. You yourselves, and the people of knowledge,
all bear witness that the imitators are not in the community of the learned
and are not counted among that group. Your entire approach [of using
proofs to justify your stance] is invalidated by [your earlier] stance [regard-
ing imitation].” For how does the imitator come to be concerned with
proofs at all? How can the position of the imitator even be compared to
that of the one who relies on proofs? All the proofs you have presented are,
in effect, robes usurped from the one who is reliant on proofs, and by
wearing them you bedizen yourselves in flamboyant garments before the
people. By doing this, you appear to be that which you are not. You speak
of knowledge that you acknowledge you do not have! This is an ill-fitting
cloak you have chosen to wear—it is a station you have usurped without
being entitled to it. So tell us, do you incline toward imitation because of a
proof that leads you [484] to it or an evidence guiding you to it, so that it
might be said that this proof led you somewhere close to the point where
you would rely on it (although because of imitation you were far away
from this very point?). Or, it might be that you chose this path by chance,
or that, in reality, you search for something other than proof. There is no
other option for you. Whichever of the two [alternatives you adopt], it
would be decisive in nullifying imitation. So it is obligatory to return to the
method of reliance on proofs.
When we speak to you with evidence, you respond, “We are not party
to this approach.” Whereas if we address you with the rulings of the schol-
ars, relating to imitation, there is no sense in considering all these proofs
[you have previously presented in support of your position].
It is strange that every group and community claims that it is on the
right path, except the party of imitation, who do not make this claim. If
they were to make it, they would be in error. For they have acknowledged
that they hold these opinions neither because of a proof leading them to
these opinions nor because of some evidence that guides them to the
same. Rather, their approach is pure imitation, and the imitator does not
know truth from falsehood or the sound from the unsound.
Even stranger is the fact that their scholars forbade imitation of them-
selves, but the imitators opposed them, revolting against the scholars
themselves. They claimed to be following their schools, even when they
92 on taqlīd

adopted rules that went against the basic foundations on which the school
was established, for the positions of the principals of the schools were
built on evidence. They forbade imitation and advised their followers that,
whenever new evidence became apparent to them, they were to abandon
their statements and follow the evidence the imitators opposed them in all
of this, and still they claim that they follow them. They are deluded. No
one follows them, except the one who adopts their approach both in basic
principles and secondary issues.
Stranger still than all of this is that they have declared the nullity and
prohibition of imitation explicitly in their books and that it is not permis-
sible to rule on its basis in the religion of God. Some of them also declared
that, if the ruler were to appoint a judge under the condition that he render
decisions according to a specific school, the condition and the appoint-
ment of the judge is void (although some of them validated the appoint-
ment and nullified only the condition).
Similarly, it is prohibited by consensus of the people for a muftī to
render an opinion on the basis of something of whose authenticity he has
no knowledge. Now the imitator lacks knowledge about the validity or nul-
lity of a statement, as this path is out of bounds to him. Further, each imi-
tator knows that he is an imitator of his principal, so he does not abandon
the statement of his principal and leaves everything that contradicts it,
even if it be from the Qurʾan, the Sunnah, the statements of a Companion,
or the statement of a scholar who is more knowledgeable than his princi-
pal or of one who is his equal. This is absolutely bewildering.

Responses to the Arguments of the Imitators

The first argument:
We also know that during, the time of the Companions, there was no in-
dividual whom everyone followed and imitated in everything, or in whose
favor the views of all others [485] were rejected. We also know that such a
thing did not occur in the times of the Successors and those who followed
them. So let the imitators demonstrate that we are liars by producing
even a single man who acted according to their pernicious methodology
in the generations that were declared meritorious by the Prophet. This
innovation appeared in the fourth century, [a period] that had already
been condemned by the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be
on him. The imitators, following their principals, rendered permissible
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 93

the shedding of blood and the violation of property, and, then following
them elsewhere, they forbade these same things, without knowing
whether any of this was right or not. This path of theirs was a very danger-
ous one. They shall have a heavy reckoning before God, whence it will
become apparent that those who spoke about Him without knowledge
were upon mere nothingness.
Similarly, we say to everyone who imitates a specific person in prefer-
ence to others, “What is it that makes your principal more worthy of being
imitated than all others?” If he says, “Because he was the most knowl-
edgeable person of his time” (and perhaps they would even elevate him
over those who went before him because of their erroneous conviction
that no one more knowledgeable followed him), it should be said to him,
“How do you know that this person was the most knowledgeable of the
community in his time when you are not knowledgeable (as you acknowl-
edge yourself )?” Such a thing can be known only by one who knows the
schools and their evidences, their stronger and weaker positions. How
can a blind man count dirhams? This is yet another instance of speaking
about God without knowledge.

The second argument:

Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb, Muʿādh b.
Jabal, ʿĀʾishah*, Ibn ʿAbbās, and Ibn ʿUmar are all, without a doubt, more
knowledgeable than your principal. So why not abandon him and imitate
them? Even Saʿīd b. al-Muṣayyib, al-Shaʿbī, ʿAtāʾ, Ṭāʾūs, and their like were
undoubtedly more knowledgeable and superior than your principal, so
why did you abandon imitation of one who is superior in knowledge, and
the one who possessed the greater share of the means of blessings, knowl-
edge, and religion? Why did you turn away from the statements and
schools of these toward those who are inferior to them?
If the imitator replies, “Because my principal and the one I imitate
have more knowledge of the early scholars than I do, so my imitation of
him obliged me to oppose the statement of the earlier scholar in favor of
his own statement. Moreover, the wide knowledge of my principal
and his excellence in religion prevent him from opposing a scholar who
is his superior and is more knowledgeable than him, except on the basis

*
ʿĀʾishah (d. 58/678), the daughter of Abū Bakr and the wife of the Prophet.
94 on taqlīd

of an evidence he relies upon, this evidence being preferable to everyone

else’s statements.”
Then it is to be said to him, “How have you come to know that the evi-
dence adopted by your principal—the one you assume to be your principal—
is preferable to the evidence adopted by the one who is more knowledgeable
or better than him, or even his equal? These statements, taken together, are
contradictory and cannot be correct. Rather, only one of them is correct. It is
known that the one who is more knowledgeable is more likely to arrive at the
correct view than the one who is his inferior.”
If you [i.e., the imitator] reply, “I came to know of this on the basis of
evidence,” [486] you have turned from the path of imitation to that of seek-
ing proofs and in doing so, have nullified imitation.

The third argument:

This principle of yours will not benefit you at all whenever there is dis-
agreement, as there is between the one you imitate and the one imitated
by others. When the one who is imitated by others has adopted the view of
Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿAli, Ibn ʿAbbās, or ʿĀʾishah or others excluding your
principal, why do you not follow your own advice and act on your own
understanding of righteousness by saying, “Both of them are eminent
scholars, and any one of them who mentions the Companions (as his
proof ) is worthier of being imitated by me.”

As a result it will be said to him:

4. One scholar is the equal of another, and the statement of a Compan-
ion is to be accepted [above all, as he is superior] and is more deserv-
ing of imitation. It will also be said:
5. Because you have accepted that your principal can attain knowledge
that had eluded ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ʿAbdallāh b.
Masʿūd, and their companions, it is certainly true and possible that his
contemporaries and those who come after him can also attain the
knowledge that eluded the principal. For there is far greater similarity
between your principal and his contemporaries than between your
principal and the Companions. The truth is more likely to remain
concealed from your principal than it is from them.
6. You have allowed yourself to oppose the better and more knowledge-
able person in favor of an inferior one. Why not instead allow yourself
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 95

to oppose the inferior one in favor of the one who is more know-
ledgeable? Did you not do the exact opposite of what was proper and
necessary?
7. In imitating your principal and legalizing marriages, shedding blood,
and transferring the wealth of people from its owners to others are
you acting in accord with the command of God, His Messenger, the
consensus of his community, or the statement of any one of his Com-
panions? If he replies, “Yes,” he is saying something whose invalidity
is known to God, His Messenger and all scholars. If he says, “No,” his
intellectual paucity is sufficient for us, as he has made God, His Mes-
senger, and the people of knowledge testify against himself.
8. Imitating your principal itself prohibits you from imitating him, for
he forbade imitation and said that it was not [487] allowed for anyone
to rule on its basis, unless he knew the rationale of his rulings. He
forbade you from imitating him and other scholars, so if you are truly
a complete imitator of his school, this too is from it. Why will you not
imitate him in this?
9. Are you sure or unsure that your principal is more correct than every-
one else from the earlier and later generations, whose opinions you
have abandoned? If the imitator replies, “I have insight,” he says
something which he knows to be void. If he says, “I do not have in-
sight” (and this is the truth), it will be said to him, “What will your
excuse be tomorrow, when your principal will be able neither to ben-
efit you with a single good deed in front of God nor take away a single
sin from you. When you then render decisions and verdicts among
people on the basis of this uncertainty about your principal being cor-
rect, is this right or wrong?”
10. “Do you assert the infallibility of your principal, or do you concede
that he could make errors?” The first proposition is impossible. In
fact, you concur on its nullity. Therefore, the second proposition must
be correct. Then, when it is possible for him to err, how do you legal-
ize the shedding of blood, contracts of marriage, transfers of property,
and the infliction of corporal punishments on the people? How do you
legalize, prohibit, and create obligations for others, based on the state-
ment of the one you acknowledge could have been in error.
11. When you render a verdict or a decision according to the statement of
your principal, do you say, “This is the religion of God, which He re-
vealed to His Messenger and in His Book. And this is the Law He de-
creed for mankind, there being no religion that comes from Him
96 on taqlīd

except this?” Or do you say, “The religion of God, which He legislated

for mankind, is against this?” Or do you say, “I do not know?” You
would have to respond with one of these statements.

You certainly cannot respond with the first statement, for it is not permis-
sible to oppose the religion of God—which is the only true religion—while
you deem it permissible to oppose the religion by allowing opposition to
your principal. The least that can be said about the one who opposes the
true religion is that he is a sinner. Nor do you respond with the second
statement. As a result, you have no choice but to respond with the third.
By God, this is strange—that marriages, the shedding of blood, transfers
of rights and property, and general legal permissibility and prohibition
should all proceed on the basis of something, about which the best that
can be said is, “I do not know.”

If you do not know, that is an affliction.

If you do know, the affliction is but greater.

12. What did the people do before the birth of the founders of the schools,
whom you imitate and whose statements you equate with the texts of
the Lawgiver? If only you had stopped here. Instead, you have pre-
ferred to follow them rather than the explicit texts of the Lawgiver.
Were the people who were alive before the existence of your principals
on [488] the right path or not? You must respond that they were. Then
it is to be said to them, “What were they doing, other than following
the Qurʾan, the Sunnah, and the practices of the Companions and pre-
ferring these over everything that contradicted them. Were they doing
anything other than referring to these for judgment over the state-
ments and opinions of others? When this is the right path, what is left
after this except misguidance? How then can you be so misguided?”

If every sect among the imitators were to say—and they already do—“Our
principal remained firm on the path of earlier scholars, and followed their
methodology,” it will be said to them, “Did other scholars share this trait
with your principal, or was he the only one following the early scholars,
while others were deprived of this ability?”
One of these two propositions must apply. If they go for the second,
they are even more misguided than cattle. If they go for the first, it will be
asked, “How could you agree to accept all the statements of your principal
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 97

and to reject all the statements of his equal or even those of the one more
knowledgeable than him?”
You do not reject any opinion of one of the scholars [i.e., your own
principal], and you do not accept any opinion of the other. You do this until
it seems that the truth was a trust endowed to your principal and error to
the one who opposed him.
Because of this, it is as if you are advocates appointed to support him
in everything he says and to reject everyone who opposes him. And this is
also how the other scholars’ faction regards you.

What Is Said Regarding the Scholars’ Proscription

of Imitation of Themselves
13. Those scholars whom you imitate actually prohibited you from doing
so. Therefore, you are their foremost opponents.

Al-Shāfiʿī said, “The similitude of the one who seeks knowledge with-
out evidence is that of the one who is collecting wood at night. He carries
a load of sticks, but in them there might be a snake who could bite him
while he is still unaware.” Abū Ḥanīfah and Abū Yūsuf said, “It is not
permissible for anyone to say what we have said, unless he knows the
basis on which we have said it.” Aḥmad [b. Ḥanbal] said, “Do not imitate
anyone in your religion.”

Another Argument with the Proponents

of Imitation
14. It is said to the imitators, “Do you believe that tomorrow you shall be
standing before God, and He shall ask you [not only] about the judg-
ments you issued, as a result of which the blood of His people was
shed, their private parts declared lawful to each other, corporal pun-
ishment inflicted on them, and their wealth pronounced permissible
or forbidden, [but] also [about] the verdicts you issued [489] in His
religion, declaring things lawful, permissible, and obligatory?”

As for the ones who say, “Yes, we believe in that,” it is to be said to them,
“If you are asked, ‘How could you say this? How would you respond?’”
They would say, “Our response will be that we rendered things permissible
98 on taqlīd

and forbidden and issued judgments according to what was narrated in the
book al-ʾAṣl by Muḥammad b. Ḥasan from the opinions and selected rul-
ings of Abū Ḥanīfah and Abū Yūsuf, according to al-Mudawwanah from
the narration by Saḥnūn of Ibn al-Qāsim’s opinions and selected rulings,
according to what was in al-Umm from the narration of the opinions and
selected rulings of Rabīʿ and according to the responses of others that con-
tain the same.” Had you but stopped there. If only you had gone so far and
no further. If only your strength had failed you here. Rather, your response
is far beneath even this. So, if you are asked by God, “Did you act so out of
obedience to Me or My Messenger?,” at that time, what will your response
be? If it is possible for you to say then, “We did what You and Your Mes-
senger commanded,” you will have succeeded and concluded the matter,
but if you are not able to say this, then you must say, “Neither You nor Your
Messenger nor our scholars commanded us to do this.” You must offer one
of these two responses. It does seem that the second answer is the one you
will profess.

15. It is also to be said, when Jesus the son of Mary descends as a fair
Imām, a just ruler, and a judge, according to whose school will he
decide? According to whose opinions will he rule? It is known that he
will not rule or judge with anything other than the law of our Prophet,
which God legislated for His creation. So it is preferable to rule with
this law, by which he too will rule. It is obligatory on you to follow and
to rule by the one who is closer to Jesus the son of Mary than all others
[i.e., the Prophet Muḥammad]. It is not at all permissible for anyone to
follow or to issue verdicts according to any other authority. If you say,
“We both agree on this issue,” it is to be said, “Yes, but our responses
before God will differ.”

For we shall say, “Our Lord! You know that we did not appoint any indi-
vidual scholar an arbiter over Your Word or the word of Your Messenger.
Nor did we refer to such a person to resolve our disagreements. Nor did
we hold the opinion of a scholar to be the arbiter, nor did we accord prece-
dence to his opinions over Your Words, those of Your Messenger and his
Companions. We deemed all of creation too unworthy for its words and
views to be awarded precedence over Your revelation. Rather, we ruled ac-
cording to what we found in Your Book, what reached us from the Sunnah
of Your Messenger, and what was ruled by his Companions. If we ever
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 99

turned away from this, it was an unintentional error. Nor did we take an
ally [Ar. walījah], other than You, Your Messenger, or the Believers. Never
did we split up our religion and become divided into sects.
“We did not break up our religion into pieces nor take our scholars as
our absolute authorities and intermediaries between us and Your Mes-
senger in what they related to us about him. Nor did we follow and imitate
them in all those [matters that they narrated], for You and Your Messenger
[490] commanded us to hear from the scholars and to accept what they
convey from both of you, so we heard and accepted this out of obedience
to Your command and in fulfillment of it. We did not take the scholars as
lords on the basis of whom we argued and by whose rulings we judged.
Nor did we call and invite people to this. Rather, we presented their opin-
ions before Your Book and the Sunnah of Your Messenger and accepted
whatever was in agreement with them, rejecting and turning away from
whatever was not. We did this even if they were more knowledgeable than
us about You and Your Messenger, for the one whose opinion matches the
view of Your Messenger in a particular issue is the one who has the most
knowledge of him in it.”
This is our response. And we ask you by the right of God over you, “Are
you also in a similar state, so that it would be possible for you to give this
response in front of the One whose Word does not change and before
whom falsehood does not stand?”

16. O people of imitation, every sect among you lowers the rank of all the
Companions, the Successors, and all the scholars of the community,
from the first to the last, to a level where no opinions are to be consid-
ered, except for the opinions of the one you imitate. Nor are their
verdicts [i.e., of these other scholars] to be looked into, engaged with
or relied upon. Nor is there any point in examining them, except to
circumvent them and to sharpen one’s mind by exerting oneself in
rejecting the views of other scholars, if their opinions contradict the
opinions of one’s own principals. This is deemed permissible by them
in order to refute their rivals. If the opinion of their own principal
should go against a clear text of God and His Messenger, they regard
it as obligatory to sport with the divine texts and use every artifice to
take them out of their proper meaning, circumventing them in every
possible way until the opinion of their principal is proved correct. By
God, what would have become of His religion, His Book and His
100 on taqlīd

Messenger’s Sunnah when faced with an innovation that, if success-

ful, would almost ruin the throne of faith and destroy its pillar? For
they would have succeeded if God had not guaranteed that there
would always be someone in this religion who would speak with its
signs and protect the religion from deviance through them. As for the
person who does not turn toward the opinion of a single one of the
Companions nor toward their verdicts but only turns toward the ver-
dicts of his principal, whom he has taken as an ally other than God
and His Messenger, nobody has cast worse disrepute on the Compan-
ions, the Successors, and on all the Muslim scholars than him. Nobody
is worse in belittling their rights and a greater denier of what is their
due. Nobody demeans them more than this person.
17. It is also to be said, “O imitators, the most puzzling part of your affair
is that you have acknowledged and conceded that you yourselves are
incapable of recognizing the truth based on its evidence from the
Word of God and the word of His Messenger, despite its ease, its prox-
imity as a source, its being comprised of the clearest, most eloquent
expression, and the impossibility of contradiction and conflict [491]
therein.” Furthermore, it is authentically reported from the infallible
transmitter.

God has established clear evidence for truth and has made lucid for man-
kind what they should be conscious of. However, you claim an incapacity
to recognize that for which He has established evidence and for the elo-
quent expression of which He has taken responsibility. Then you allege
that you know, based on evidence, that your principal is more worthy of
being imitated than others, the most knowledgeable one in the commu-
nity and the most highly ranked in his own age.
The extremists from all your sects obligate imitation of their own prin-
cipal and prohibit imitation of everyone else, as is stated in your books on
jurisprudence.
It is truly astounding for the person who is unable to see the right path
for which God has established evidence and who cannot be guided to it, to
be guided somehow to the knowledge that his principal is more correct
and more likely to arrive at the truth than anyone else. This is something
for which God never established any evidence.

18. It is to be said, “It is even more astounding that when you imitators
find a verse in the Book of God that agrees with your principal, you
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 101

apparently act according to it, even while your reliance is on what he

said, not on the verse itself. And if you find a verse relied on by your
opponent that contradicts the opinion of your principal, you do not
act according to it. You seek other ways to interpret it, in ways con-
trary to its clear meaning, merely because it does not correspond to
his view. This is also how you act when it comes to the Sunnah. If
you find an authentic ḥadīth that agrees with the opinion of your
principal, you act according to it, saying, ‘Our stance is absolutely
supported by the words of the Prophet that we choose to rely on.’ And
if you find one hundred aḥādīth or more which go against his view,
you do not act according to a single one of them. All this time you do
not even have a single ḥadīth that supports you, allowing you to say:
‘We follow the Prophet in such and such a way.’ If you find a mursal
ḥadīth* that agrees with the opinion of your principal, you act accord-
ing to it, presenting it as a proof. However, if you find one hundred
mursal āḥādīth which go against his view, you leave them all in their
entirety. And you [then] say, ‘We do not act according to the mursal
traditions.’”

The Position of the Imitators Regarding H

. adı̄th
and Examples Thereof
19. It is to be said, that, even stranger than all of this is that, when you do
accept a ḥādīth (whether it be mursal or musnad),† because of its agree-
ment with the opinion of your principal, and you then find a ruling in
it which goes against another opinion of his, you do not act according
to it, even though the same ḥadīth that contains both rulings. It is as if
the ḥadīth is a proof to the extent that it agrees with the view of the
person you imitate and is devoid of proof to the extent that it goes
against his view.

We shall mention examples of this, for it is the most bizarre part of their
affair. [492]

*
A mursal ḥadīth is one that is reported by a Successor without naming the Companion from
whom he narrates.
†
A musnad ḥadīth is one whose chain of transmission is connected to the Prophet.
102 on taqlīd

A Section on the Straying and Wavering

of the Imitator in Adopting Some of the Sunnah
and Abandoning Other Parts of It
A group of them argued for the inability of water that has already been
used in ritual purification to remove a state of impurity, based on the report
that the Prophet forbade a man from performing ablution (wuḍūʾ) with the
excess water left over by a woman after performing ablution; and he also
forbade a woman from performing ablution with the excess water left over
by a man.15 They said, “That which is ‘left over’ is the water that drips from
their limbs after ablution.” Then they went against the ḥadīth, allowing
each to perform ablution with the excess pure water left by the other, even
though the prohibition of the excess water is the main import of the ḥadīth.
It forbids a man from performing ablution with the excess water left by the
woman if she performed ablution in private, but her being in private has
no significance for these imitators. Nor is there any significance attached
to the fact that the water is left over by a woman. So they went against the
ḥadīth on which they themselves relied, interpreting it out of context. For
the excess water of ablution is certainly that which is left over [in the vessel
containing the water], not that with which ablutions are actually per-
formed. For this latter is not called excess. Therefore, they used the ḥadīth
to rely on something to which it does not pertain. And it is deemed invalid
by them to argue on its basis for that which it indicates. [493]
Similar is their view on water becoming impure by contact with an
impurity, even if the water does not change as a result, relying on the fact
that the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, prohib-
ited that standing water be urinated in.16 But then they said, “If he does
urinate in standing water, it does not become impure, unless it is less than
[that held by] two large containers [qullatayn].”
They also relied, in proving its impurity, on the Prophet’s words,
“When one of you rises from his sleep, let him not immerse his hands in
the water container until he washes them thrice.”17 But then they said, “If
he does immerse his hands before this, it does not render the water
impure, nor is it obligatory on him to wash them, and if he wishes to
immerse them before they are washed, he is free to do that.”
In this issue, they also relied on the fact that the Prophet commanded
the earth on which someone had urinated to be dug up and its soil to be
taken out. But then they said, “It is not necessary to dig it up.18 Rather, if it
is left until it becomes dry by the sun and the wind, it will be purified.” [494]
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 103

They argued that water that had already been used for ablution could
not be re-used, based on the words of the Prophet, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, to Banī ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib*: “God dislikes that
you use that with which people have purified their hands [Ar. zakāt].†
What the Prophet meant was the zakāt [i.e., the wealth tax]. But they then
said, “Zakāt is not forbidden for the Banī ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.”
They also argued that dead floating fish, as opposed to other dead sea
animals, do not pollute the water, based on the words of the Prophet about
the sea, “Its water is pure, and its dead animals are lawful for consump-
tion.”19 But then they [495] went against this report and said, “Dead fish in
the sea are not lawful. Nor, as a matter of principle, is it permissible to eat
anything other than fish.”
The ahl al-rāʾy relied on the words of the Prophet: “If a dog licks a bowl
belonging to one of you, let him wash it seven times,”20 to prove the impu-
rity of a dog and its saliva. But then they said, “It is not necessary to wash
it seven times. Rather, it can be washed once.” And some of them said,
“Thrice.”
They argued for the distinction between a major impurity, which was
the size of a dirham coin, and that which was not, based on a ḥadīth (which
is not authentic) from the chain of Ghuṭayf, from Zuhrī, from Abī Sala-
mah,‡ from Abū Hurayrah in marfūʿ form, “Repeat the prayers, because of
the impurity that is the size of a dirham.”21 But then they said, “The prayer
is not to be repeated on account of an impurity of this size.” [496]
They relied on the ḥadīth of ʿAlī b. Abū Ṭālib, about zakāt on surplus
camels numbering more than 120, to say that the zakāt here returns to the
original amount, that is, one goat is offered for every five camels.22 But
then they disagree with twelve other points in this narration. They relied
also on the ḥadīth of ʿAmr b. Ḥazm: “There is no zakāt on whatever
exceeds 200 dirhams, until it reaches 40, and then there is a dirham to be
paid as zakāt.”23 But they went against the explicit parts of the same ḥadīth
[497] in no less than 15 areas.

*
Banī ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib refers to the clan of the Prophet, descendants of his grandfather, ʿAbd
al-Muṭṭalib.
†
The Arabic word zakāt literally means purification but is also used to refer to the specific
legal tax imposed by Islamic law on accumulated wealth.
‡
Abī Salamah b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qurashī (d. 94/713), a renowned Medinese traditionist.
104 on taqlīd

They argued that the option of rescission* is not for a period of more
than three days, based on the ḥadīth of the Muṣarrāt.24 This is absurd, for
they are the staunchest rejecters of this ḥadīth.† They do not rule accord-
ing to it, so, if it is correct, then it is obligatory to follow it in its entirety.
And if it is not correct, it is not permissible to rely on it for the purpose
only of ascertaining the three-day period. Besides, there is no contradic-
tion between this ḥadīth and the option of rescission. So they reject what
the ḥadīth is actually about and what it indicates, while it offers no proof
of the argument for which they relied on it.
They also relied, in this matter, on the khabar‡ of Ḥabbān b. Munqidh,§
who was being cheated in contracts of sale. So the Prophet gave him a
period of three days to rescind the sale.25 They go against the entire report.
They do not affirm the right [498] of rescission for being cheated, even if
what the buyer has bought is worth ten times less than what he has spent.
Likewise, they do not affirm the right of rescission, whether or not the
buyer says beforehand, “Do not deceive me,” and whether he was deceived
about a large amount of money or a small one—none of this creates a
right of rescission [according to them].
They argued for the obligation of atonement for the one who breaks
his fast during the day of Ramaḍān,** as some of the words of the ḥadīth
say that a man broke his fast, so the Prophet commanded him to atone for
it.26 But then they go against these very words and say, “If he inhales flour
or incense he has thereby broken his fast but there is no atonement due
on him.”
They argued for the necessity of making up the fast later for the one
who intentionally vomits, based on the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah,27 but then

*
An option of rescission allows a person to nullify a contract of sale within a certain period,
normally three days, for those who accept the doctrine in the first place, which the Ḥanafīs
do not.
†
The ḥadīth of muṣarrāt states that a person who unknowingly buys an animal which has
not been milked for several days (thus giving a false impression about the amount of milk it
would normally yield) may return that animal with a measure of dates to compensate for the
milk consumed by the buyer. The ḥadīth is not acted upon by the Ḥanafīs, who argue that,
because there is no equivalence between milk and dates, the ḥadīth goes against the rational
principles that underlie the law of sales.
‡
A khabar is normally a report about a Companion that does not purport to be a ḥadīth.
§
Ḥabbān b. Munqidh b. ʿAmr al-Anṣārī al-Māzinī, a Companion who died during the caliph-
ate of ʿUthmān.
**
Ramaḍān, the Muslim month of fasting.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 105

they go against this very ḥadīth and say, “If he vomits less than a mouthful,
there is no obligation on him to make up the fast.”
They argued for the existence of a limit regarding the travel that allows
one to avail oneself of the dispensation of not fasting and of combining
the ritual prayers based on the Prophet’s words, “It is not permissible for
a [Muslim] woman who believes in God and the Last Day to travel a dis-
tance of three days, except with her husband or her non-marriageable
kin.”28 They say this [499] despite the fact that there is no evidence here
for what they claim. Nevertheless, they still go against it saying, “It is per-
missible for a slave woman, the mukātibah slave,* and the umm al-walad†
to travel without a husband and non-marriageable kin.”
They argued for the prohibition of the person in a state of ritual conse-
cration [iḥrām] covering his face, based on the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās about
the one whose she-camel threw him off while he was in a state of ritual
consecration, and he died. So the Prophet said, “Do not cover his head or
his face, for he will be raised on the Day of Judgment reciting the talbiyah.‡
This is strange, for they are the ones who say, “If a person in a state of
ritual consecration dies, it is permissible to cover his head and his face,
and his state of ritual consecration is nullified.”
They argued for the obligation of compensation for the one who kills a
hyena in a state of ritual consecration, based on the ḥadīth of Jābir,§ in
which he ruled that the hyena be eaten and that the killer pay a sum of
money. He attributed this to the Messenger of God. Then they go against
the ḥadīth itself and say, “It is not permissible to eat it.”
They argued, regarding the one who was liable to pay a one-year-old
female camel [in zakāt] and who offers two-thirds of a two-year-old female
to equal the one year-old female (or a donkey that is equal in value to it),
that this will be sufficient for him, based on the authentic ḥadīth of Anas**,
which contains the words: “Whoever is liable to pay a one-year-old female

*
The mukātibah is a slave woman who is contracted to be freed upon payment of an agreed
sum to her owner.
†
A slave woman who has borne children to her master and who thus may not be bought or
sold.
‡
The words “Here I am, at your service Lord, here I am,” which are uttered by the pilgrim
who enters iḥrām.
§
Abū ʿAbdallāh Jābir b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr al-Salami al-Anṣārī (d. 78/697), a famous Com-
panion of the Prophet.
**
Abū Ḥamzah Anas b. Mālik (d. 93/712), a Companion of the Prophet.
106 on taqlīd

and does not have one but does have a two-year-old female, then this will
be taken from him, and the collector will return two goats or twenty dir-
hams to him.”29 This is strange, as they do not rule according to what the
ḥadīth indicates about this form of paying zakāt. And they argue on the
basis of it for something that it does not indicate in any way whatsoever,
and for what was not even intended by it.
They argued that the corporal punishments [ḥudūd, sing. ḥadd] men-
tioned in the Qurʾan and the Sunnah are suspended in the abode of war,
even if the Muslim acts in a way that would require their implementation,
based on the ḥadīth, “Do not amputate hands during war.” In another nar-
ration the words are, “during travel.”30 But they do not rule according to
[500] this ḥadīth, for, according to them, neither travel nor battle has any-
thing to do with suspension of ḥudūd punishments.
They argued for the obligation of slaughtering an animal after the
major pilgrimage, based on the ḥadīth that the Prophet commanded that
animals be slaughtered and that one’s neighbors and the needy be fed
from them. They say, “It is not obligatory to feed the neighbor, nor the
needy.”
They argued for the permissibility of the slaughter done by the one
who has usurped or stolen an animal, based on the report in which the
Messenger was invited to a meal, along with a group of his Companions.
When he took a morsel he said, “I believe this goat was taken unlawfully.”
So the woman who had invited him said, “I took it from another woman
without the knowledge of her husband.” So the Prophet commanded that
the non-Muslim prisoners be fed with it.31 They go against this ḥadīth and
say, “The slaughter carried out by a usurper is lawful, and that meat is not
prohibited for the Muslims.” [501]
They argued for the termination of compensation for wounding live-
stock, based on another ḥadīth: “The wounds caused by an animal are not
to be considered when determining compensation.”32 Then they oppose it,
in what it indicates and what is meant by it, saying, “Whoever rides an
animal, leads it, or directs it, he is liable to the one whom the animal bites
with its mouth, and there is no compensation on him for what the animal
damages with his feet.”
They argue for delaying financial compensation for injury until the
victim recovers from the same, based on the well-known ḥadīth that a man
struck another in his knee with a horn and thereby demanded compensa-
tion. The Messenger of God told him to wait until he recovered, but he
refused,33 so he arranged for the payment to be made to him before his
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 107

recovery. They went against what the ḥadīth relates about blood money
[qiṣās] for stabbing and maintained that there is no qiṣās in that.
They argue for the suspension of ḥadd on the one who commits adul-
tery with the slave woman of his son or with the slave who is his child’s
mother, based on the words of the Prophet: “You and what you own belong
to your father.” But they go against what is indicated in this by saying,
“The father does not have any right over what his son owns. And it is not
permissible for him to take from his son’s wealth so much as a twig from
an arak tree [a species of palm], or even less than that.” They even obligate
imprisoning the father for a debt to his son and for return of the security
for a loan which the father handed over to him. [502]
They argue that the imām says, “God is Great,” when the one pro-
nouncing the second call to prayer [iqāmah]* says, “The prayer has
been established,” based on the ḥadīth of Bilāl†, in which he said to the
Messenger of God, “Do not precede me in saying ‘Amen.’”34 And based
also on an identical statement of Abū Hurayrah to Marwān‡, “Do not
precede me in saying Amen.” Then they go openly against this report
and say, “Neither the imām nor the one praying behind him is to say
‘Amen.’”
They argue for the obligation of wiping one-fourth of the head in ablu-
tion, based on the ḥadīth of Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah§ that the Messenger of
God wiped his forelock and turban.35 Then they go against that which it
indicates and say, “Wiping on the turban is not permissible [503] and no
purification is achieved by wiping over it.” In their view, the obligation is
fulfilled only by wiping the forelock, and wiping the turban is neither
obligatory nor preferable.
They argue for the preferability of performing the actions of prayer
alongside the imām [instead of immediately after him], based on the
Prophet’s words: “The imām is there to be followed.”36 They say, “Follow-
ing him requires that one act exactly as the imām acts.” Then they go
against what this ḥadīth conveys, for it also contains the following: “When

*
The first call to prayer, the adhān, signals the beginning of the time for each of the five daily
prayers. The second call, the iqāmah, signals the start of the congregational prayer, which is
to be performed during that time.
†
Bilāl b. Rabāḥ (d. 20/641), a Companion of the Prophet, who served as muezzin during the
latter’s lifetime.
‡
Marwā b. al-Ḥakam (d. 65/685), the fourth Umayyad caliph.
§
Abū ʿAbdallāh Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah al-Thaqafī (d. 50/670), a Companion of the Prophet.
108 on taqlīd

the imām proclaims takbīr*, proclaim takbīr, when he bows, bow, and
when he says, ‘God hears those who praise Him,’ say, ‘Our Lord, and
Yours is all praise.’ If he prays sitting down, then all of you are also to pray
sitting down.”
They argue that the recitation of the Opening Chapter of the Qurʾan is
not specified as an obligatory part of the prayer, based on the ḥadīth re-
garding the one who made errors in his prayer, when the Prophet said to
him, “Recite whatever is easy from that which you have memorized.”37
Then they go against what it explicitly conveys in its words, “Then bow
until you are at rest in your bowing, rise until you are at rest standing, and
then prostrate yourself until you are at rest prostrating.” [They also go
against] his words, “Go back and pray, for you have not prayed,” for they
said, “Whoever neglects to be at rest has still prayed validly, and the order
commanding this [the repetition of prayer] was not meant to convey a
necessary obligation,” despite the fact that both the command to do this
and that regarding recitation of the Opening Chapter were conveyed in the
same grammatical form [i.e., as an imperative] in the same ḥadīth.
They argue for the suspension of the practice of sitting for a rest when
rising from prostration during the ritual prayer, based on the ḥadīth of Abī
Ḥamīd38 as he did not mention [504] doing so in it.† But they opposed the
practice of raising the hands at the time of bowing and rising, which was
also mentioned in it.
They argue for the suspension of the obligation of delivering prayers
on the Prophet and the salutation [salām] in the ritual prayer, based on the
ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd: “If you say this much, your prayer is complete.”
Then they opposed it over this very thing [505] and said, “His prayer is
complete whether he said this or not.”
They argue for the permissibility of speaking while the imām gives the
sermon at the pulpit on Friday, based on the words of the Prophet to the
one who entered the mosque while the Prophet was delivering his sermon:
“Did you pray before you sat down?” The man replied in the negative, so
the Prophet said, “Arise and offer two units of prayer [rakʿāt].”39 They
oppose it, regarding whatever else it conveys by saying, “Whoever enters
while the imām is delivering his sermon is to sit down and is not to pray.”

*
Takbīr, the recitation of “God is the greatest,” a formula repeated upon each bodily move-
ment during the ritual prayer.
†
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Saʿd (or b. ʿAmr) b. al-Mundhir Abū Ḥamīd al-Sāʿidī, a Companion of
the Prophet, who died toward the end of the caliphate of Muʿāwiyah I.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 109

They argue for the reprehensibility of raising the hands before and
after bowing in prayer, based on the words of the Prophet: “What is wrong
with them that they raise their hands as if they were the tails of stubborn
horses?”40 Then they oppose it, regarding everything else it conveys, for it
also contains the words, “It is sufficient for one of you [at the end of the
ritual prayer] to offer the salutation of peace to his brother to his right and
then to his left saying both times, ‘May peace be with you and the bless-
ings of God.’”41 They said that this is not needed, and something other
than this which ends the prayer will be sufficient for him.
They argue for moving the imām back in the congregation if he breaks
wind, based on the authentic report that the Messenger of God went out
while Abū Bakr was leading the people in prayer, so he moved back and
the Prophet stepped forward, leading the people in prayer.42 [506] Then
they go against it, regarding whatever else it indicates. They say, “The
prayer of him who does this is invalidated.” Thus, they invalidate the
prayer of one who acts like the Prophet, Abū Bakr and those Companions
who were present. So they argue, on the basis of the ḥadīth, for something
which it does not indicate, while invalidating the act mandated by it.
They argue that if the imām prays the ritual prayer sitting down be-
cause of an illness, the follower praying behind him is to pray standing up,
based on the authentic report from the Prophet, that he went out and
found Abū Bakr leading the people in prayer while standing. So the
Prophet went ahead of him and sat down and led the people in prayer, and
Abū Bakr stepped back.43 Then they go against the ḥadīth, regarding the
very thing it conveys and say, “If the imām steps back without having
broken wind and another person precedes him, the prayer of both imāms
and the whole congregation is nullified.”
They argue for the nullity of the fast of the one who eats, thinking it is
nighttime when it is in fact daytime, based on the words of the Prophet:
“Bilāl delivers the call to prayer at night, so continue to eat and drink until
Ibn Umm Maktūm* does so.”44 Then they go against the ḥadīth, regarding
everything else it indicates and say, “It is not permissible to give the call to
the pre-dawn prayer during the night in Ramaḍān or at any other time.”
[507] They go against it from another perspective, too, for the same ḥadīth
says, “Ibn Umm Maktūm was a blind man who would not give the call to

*
ʿĀtīkah bt. ʿAbdallāh b. Umm Maktūm, although various names are given for this Compan-
ion, including ʿAbdallāh b. Zāʾidah and ʿAmr b. Qays, the authorities agree that he was the
blind muezzin.
110 on taqlīd

prayer until it was said to him repeatedly: ‘It is morning.’”45 According to

them, the fast of the one who eats at this time is invalidated.
They argue for the impermissibility of facing the qiblah* or turning
one’s back toward it when answering the call of nature, based on the words
of the Prophet: “Do not face the qiblah while you are answering the call of
nature nor when urinating, and do not turn your backs to it.”46 They went
against the same ḥadīth and allowed one to face it and to turn one’s back
to it when urinating.
They argue that it is not a condition of iʿtikāf † that one be fasting, based
on the authentic ḥadīth from ʿUmar that he vowed, in the period of igno-
rance, that he would perform iʿtikāf in the Sacred Mosque, so the Messen-
ger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, commanded
him to fulfill his vow.47 They do not rule according to the ḥadīth, for in
their view, a vow made by a disbeliever does not have to be fulfilled after
he accepts Islam.
They argue for the doctrine of radd,‡ based on the ḥadīth, “The woman
acquires three types of inheritance. From the one she set free [508], from
the one who is her foundling, and from her son, who was the subject of a
vow of imprecation [liʿān].”48 However, they do not rule according to the
ḥadīth when it comes to her acquisition of the wealth of her foundling,
even though ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb ruled according to the ḥadīth, as did Isḥāq
b. Rāhawayh§, and this is the correct position.
They argue that the distant kindred inherit from the wealth of the
deceased, based on the report in which the Prophet said, “Seek an heir or
a relative for him from among the distant kindred.” But, when the Com-
panions were unable to find any, he said, “Give it to the oldest from the
tribe of Khuzāʿah.”49 They do not rule according to this [509], in its provi-
sion that the wealth of the one who does not have an heir is given to the
oldest member of his tribe.
They argue for the prohibition of the killer inheriting from the wealth
of the one he kills, based on the report of ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb, from his father,

*
The direction of Mecca, which Muslims face when offering ritual prayer.
†
Iʿtikāf is the practice of secluding oneself in the mosque for a period of time, as an act of
devotion.
‡
The doctrine of radd calls for returning the inheritance of the deceased to his Qurʾanic
heirs, if there is a residual amount left but no residuary left to inherit it.
§
Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh (d. 238/853), a renowned traditionist scholar and associate
of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 111

from his grandfather:* “The killer does not inherit. Nor is a believer killed
[in retaliation for killing] for a disbeliever.”50 So they only rule in accor-
dance with the first part of the ḥadīth and not the second [510], as they hold
that a believer is killed for killing a disbeliever.
They argue for the permissibility of performing purification with clean
earth [tayammum] for the funeral prayer performed in a residential area (if
it is feared that one might miss the prayer), even if water is actually avail-
able, based on the ḥadīth of Abī Jahm b. al-Ḥārith, regarding the tayam-
mum of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, for
returning the greeting of peace.51 Then they go against it, about what it
implies in two ways:
First, [saying] that the Prophet performed tayammum with his face and
hands and not his arms.
Second, they do not dislike it for one who has broken wind to return
the greeting, nor do they approve of tayammum for that.
They argue for the permissibility of reducing the required quantity of
stones in cleansing one’s self after defecation [istinjā] to just two stones,
based on the ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd, that the Messenger of God, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him, went to answer the call of nature
and said to him, “Fetch me some stones.” So he brought him two stones
and some dried dung. The Prophet took the stones and cast away the dried
dung saying, “This is unclean.”52 Then they disagree with that which it is
explicit about, for they allowed the one who is cleaning himself with dry
material [istijmār] to do so with dried dung. They also relied on it to justify
that for which there is no proof therein, that is, regarding two stones being
sufficient to achieve purification.†
They argue that touching a woman does not invalidate the ablution
[wuḍūʾ] based on the prayer of the Prophet, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be on him, while he was carrying ʿAmāmah bt. Abī al-ʿĀṣ
b. al-Rabīʿ‡. When he stood, he carried her on his back, and when he
bowed or prostrated, he would put her down. Then they said, “The

*
Abū Ibrāhīm ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, a renowned
traditionist from the generation after the Successors.
†
Istinjā and istijmār are two methods of cleansing one’s self after answering the call of
nature. The first is to wash oneself with water, and the second involves cleaning oneself with
stones or other dry material.
‡
Umm Yaḥyā ʿAmāmah bt. Abī al-ʿĀṣ b. al-Rabīʿ b. ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, the granddaughter of the
Prophet.
112 on taqlīd

prayer of whoever prays like this is invalid, as is that of the one who
prays behind him.”
Some people of knowledge said, “It is bizarre that they invalidate this
prayer while they regard the prayer [described below] as valid:” A prayer in
which a person recites only the verse, Dark-green in colour (from plentiful
watering) [Ar. mudhāmmatān; Q., al-Raḥmān, 55:64] in Persian. Then he
bows only for as long as a single breath, rises only to the extent of the
sharp edge of a sword or does not even rise that far. Rather, he falls, as he
is, into prostration and does not place his hands or his feet on the ground.
And if it is not possible for him to place his knees or his forehead on the
ground, it would suffice if he were to place the tip of his nose on the
ground for as long as a single breath. Then he sits for as long as the pre-
scribed period of sitting after the prostrations, and then he performs an
act that nullifies prayer, such as breaking wind silently or loudly, or laugh-
ing, or any such thing.*
They argue for the prohibition of having intercourse with a female
prisoner or the slave before they are established to be without child, based
on the words of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on
him: [511] “Do not have intercourse with a pregnant woman until she casts
forth her child nor with one who has not been pregnant for a long period,
until she is established to be free of child by the arrival of her period.”
Then they go against its manifest part, saying, “If he set her free and mar-
ried her, it is permissible for the husband to have intercourse with her on
the wedding night.”
They argue about affirmation of the right of guardianship for the
maternal aunt, based on the report of the daughter of Ḥamzah and on the
fact that the Messenger decided that her maternal aunt would have custody
of her.53 Then they disagreed with it and said, “If the maternal aunt mar-
ries with a person who is not in the prohibited degrees of kinship with the
ward, such as her cousin, her right of custody is suspended.”
They argue for the prohibition of separating brothers who are both
slaves, based on the ḥadīth of ʿAlī, which prohibits this.54 [512] Then
they go against it and say, “The slave who is sold is not returned even
if this occurs,” while the ḥadīth contains an order that the slave who is
sold be returned.

*
The whole prayer described here is a veiled criticism of those Ḥanafīs who allow all these
actions, including the recitation of the Qur’an in Persian, during prayer.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 113

They argue for the application of retribution [qiṣāṣ] between a Muslim

and a person belonging to a religious minority which is protected by the
Islamic state [dhimmī], based on the report that the Prophet, may the peace
and blessings of God be on him, gave a Jew compensation after having
taken it from the Muslim who slapped him.55 Then they went against the
same and said, “There is no retaliation for a slap or for beating, neither
between two Muslims nor between a Muslim and a disbeliever.” [513]
They argue that there is no qiṣāṣ between a slave and his master, based
on the words of the Prophet, “Whoever slaps his slave, then the slave is
free.”56 Then they go against it and say, “He is not freed by this.” They also
argue based on the ḥadīth that contains the words, “The slave is freed
from the one who tortures him.” They say, “He is not obliged to pay com-
pensation.” Then they add, “He is not freed from him.”
They argue, based on the ḥadīth of ʿAmr b. Shuʿayb, from his father,
from his grandfather: “For the eye, [the compensation to be paid is] half of
the blood money [for homicide].”57 Then they oppose it in various ways,
among them in the statement of the Prophet, “and for the eye that remains
firm in its place, [the compensation is] a third of the blood money.”58 They
also oppose his statement, “For the blackened tooth, [the compensation is]
a third of the blood money.”
They argue for the permissibility of favoring some children over others
[in the distribution of gifts], based on the ḥadīth of Nuʿmān b. Bashīr,* in
which the Prophet said, “Let someone else be a witness over it.”59 Then
they went against it explicitly. For the ḥadīth itself contains the words,
“This is not right.” And, in another wording, “I do not bear witness over
injustice.” They said, “Rather, [514] this is meritorious and not unjust.
Everyone ought to be a witness over it.”
They argue for the position that impurities can be removed without the
use of running water, based on the ḥadīth, “If one of you tramples over
filth with his shoes then the earth is a purifier for them.”60 Then they
oppose it and say, “If dung or fecal matter clings [515] to his sandals, the
earth does not purify them.”
They argue for the permissibility of wiping over a bandage, based on
the ḥadīth of the one who was wounded. Then they go against it explicitly
and say, “It is not permissible to combine purification with water with
purification with earth. Rather, such a person is to wash the sound parts

*
Nuʿmān b. Bashīr b. Saʿd al-Khazrajī (d. 64/684), a Companion of the Prophet.
114 on taqlīd

of the body, if they are more than the wounded ones, and he is not to per-
form tayammum. Rather, he only performs tayammum if the wounded
part is greater, and, in this case, he is not to wash that part of the body that
is sound.”
They argue for the permissibility of appointing a succession of leaders
and rulers or setting out an order by which two people will succeed the
leader, one after the other, based on the words of the Prophet, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him, “Your leader is Zayd,* and if Zayd
is killed, then Jaʿfar,† and if he is killed, then ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥah.‡”61
Then they went against the ḥadīth and said, “It is not permissible to make
leadership dependent on a condition.” But we bear witness with God that
this appointment was the best one on the face of the earth and that it was
more correct than all the ones made by the imitators, from start to finish.
They argue for holding the one who damages property liable for what
he damaged, and they also hold that he is entitled to its possession, based
on the ḥadīth about the borrowed bowl that one of the Wives of the Prophet
broke. So the Prophet returned another bowl to the one who owned it.
Then they opposed it explicitly and said, “He is to be held liable to pay
dirhams and dinars and is not to compensate with another item like it.”
They also argue for this based on the report that contains an account of
the goat that was slaughtered without the consent of its owner. The
Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, did not return it
to its owner. Then they went against it explicitly. For the Prophet, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him, did not declare the one who killed
that animal as its owner. Rather, he commanded that it be fed to the disbe-
lieving prisoners.
They argue for suspending the amputation of the hand for theft of fruit
and that item which is about to rot, based on the report, “There is to be no
amputation of hands for dates nor for the surplus amount.”62 Then they
opposed the ḥadīth in several ways:
First [517], it also contains the words, “If he takes it to a storehouse,
then the punishment of amputation does apply to it, if it is stolen.”63
Whereas for them, there is never to be any amputation in this case,
whether the thief takes it to the storehouse or not.

*
Zayd b. Ḥārithah (d. 8/629), the adopted son of the Prophet.
†
Jaʿfar b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 8/629), the cousin of the Prophet.
‡
ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāḥah al-Khazrajī (d. 8/629), a Companion of the Prophet.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 115

Second, the Prophet said, “If it reaches the value of a shield, then the
hand is to be amputated as a punishment for theft.”64 And in the Ṣaḥīḥ,* it
is found that the value of the shield [518] is three dirhams,65 whereas in
their view, the thief’s hands are not to be amputated for this amount.
Third, they said, “A storehouse is not a place of safety, therefore, if he
steals a dry date from it when there was no one guarding it, then his hands
are not to be amputated.”
They argue that the person who brings back a runaway slave is entitled
to forty dirhams, based on the report that contains the words, “Whoever
brings back a runaway slave from outside the sacred precincts is entitled
to ten dirhams or dinars.”66 But they opposed it openly and held it obliga-
tory that he be paid forty. [519]
They argued that the option in preemption arises only immediately
after the preemptor learns of the sale, based on the ḥadīth of Ibn al-
Baylmānī,† “Preemption is like the loosening of the cord, and there is no
preemption for the minor nor for the one who is absent,67 and whoever
tortures his slave, then the slave is freed.” Then they went against all of
this, except his statement, “Preemption is like the loosening of the cord.”
They argued for the prohibition of retaliation between the father and
son and the master and slave, based on the ḥadīth, “The father is not re-
taliated against for [killing] his son, nor the master for [killing] his slave.”68
[520] Then they went against the ḥadīth itself, for it also contains the
words, “Whoever tortures his slave, then the slave is freed.”
They argued that the illegitimate child is attributed to the master of the
bed [i.e., the adulterer] and not the adulteress, based on the ḥadīth of Ibn
Walīdah Zamʿah,‡ which says, “The child is for the [master of the] bed.”
Then they went against the ḥadīth explicitly and said, “The slave-woman
is not [associated with] the bed,” even though this ruling was given regard-
ing the case of the slave-woman herself. It is strange that they say that if a
man contracts a marriage with his mother or his daughter or his sister, he
will not be given a ḥadd punishment, because of the existence of a doubt
that renders the punishment invalid, and this woman [who is his relative]
will become associated with the bed, even with this void and prohibited

*
Ṣaḥīḥ, the authentic collections of ḥadīth, most often referring to those of al-Bukhārī and
Muslim.
†
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Zayd Ibn al-Baylmānī, a Successor from Yemen.
‡
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zamʿah al-Qurashī al-ʿĀmirī, the child who was the subject of the afore-
mentioned ḥadīth that bears his name.
116 on taqlīd

contract. On the other hand, the slave woman who has borne him a child
and is the mother of his children and with whom he has intercourse day
and night will not become associated with his bed.
Among the truly outrageous matters is that they argue for the permis-
sibility of fasting in Ramaḍān, when one only formed the intention to do
so before midday on the day of the fast itself, based on the ḥadīth of
ʿĀʾishah that the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
used to come to her and ask if there was anything for lunch. She would
reply in the negative. So he would then say, “In that case I am fasting.”69
Then they said, “If a person does this in a voluntary fast, his fast would not
be valid.” Whereas the ḥadīth relates to the voluntary fast itself. [521]
They argue for the prohibition of the sale of the mudabbar* slave
because one of the causes of freedom is already present in him and his
sale would nullify this. They responded to the argument that the Prophet
sold a mudabbar,70 by saying that he sold his service. Then they said, “It is
not even permissible to sell the service of a mudabbar.”
They argue for the obligation of including trees in the contract for the
sale of land, based on his statement [i.e., the statement of the narrator who
related this tradition that], the Messenger of God decreed that preemption
be applied in every share of a building and wall. Then they went against
the explicit meaning of the same ḥadīth, for it also contains the words, “It
is not permissible for him to sell until he informs his partner. If he sells it
without informing him, then the partner is more entitled to it.” Then [the
Shāfiʿīs] said, “It is permissible for him to sell it before his consent.” And
[the Ḥanafīs said], “It is permissible for him to circumvent the preemp-
tion by using legal fictions.” And [most of the scholars among the imita-
tors say], “If he sells it after the consent of his partner, then the partner is
still more entitled to preemption. And his giving consent or withholding
it is irrelevant, as far as his right to preemption is concerned.”
They argue for the prohibition of the sale of olive oil in exchange for
olives, except after one knows that the amount of oil within the olives is
less than the olive oil [being offered in exchange]. They based this argu-
ment on the ḥadīth that has in it a prohibition on the sale of meat in
exchange for animals. Then they went against it and said, “It is permissi-
ble to sell meat in exchange for animals, whether the meat comes from
that same type of animal or from a different one.”

*
A mudabbar slave is one who is to be freed upon his master’s death.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 117

They argue that the unconditional gift of a patient [suffering from a

terminal illness], such as a bequest, is not upheld, except to the value of a
third of the gift, based on the ḥadīth of ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn* that a man freed
six slaves at the time of his death and had no wealth except for them. So
the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, divided them
into three groups, and he cast lots between them, freed two, and kept the
other four as slaves.71 Then they went against it in two ways: They said,
“No lots are to be cast between them.” They also said, “Each one of them
is freed to the value of one-sixth.” [522]
There are numerous examples of this. The point to consider is that
imitation commands you to act thus. In fact, it forcefully compels you to
it. If you had accorded precedence to following evidence over imitation,
you would not be in such a predicament. If these traditions are true, it is
obligatory to submit to them and to uphold whatever lies therein. If they
are not authentic, then nothing [in terms of rulings] can be derived from
them. As for authenticating and accepting that part of them that agrees
with what the principal of your school said, while falsifying and rejecting
them if they go against the statement of the principal, or interpreting
them in contrived ways, this is the gravest of errors and contradictions.
You sometimes say the traditions that we oppose are contradicted by
stronger ones, whereas what we act on is not opposed by something
[which would necessitate] that it be abandoned or rejected.
In response, it is said, “These and all other traditions like them must
either be abrogated or operative. If they are abrogated, then indeed, no
proof can be sought from that which is abrogated. If they are operative,
then it is not allowed to oppose any part thereof.”
If it is said that they are abrogated to the extent that we oppose them
and operative to the extent that we agree with them, then it is to be said,
“This, as well as being manifestly wrong, connotes that the one who
makes this claim has no knowledge about it. He says something for which
there is no evidence. The least that can be said about this is that, if the
opponent [i.e., an imitator from another school] is dealt a similar argu-
ment as this [i.e., that a ḥadīth is operative insofar as it agrees with the
views of his principal or school], that claim would be the same as this one,
and there would be no difference between the two. Both of them would
therefore claim something that cannot be proved. The obligation is to

*
ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn b. ʿUbayd al-Khuzāʿī al-Kaʿbī (d. 52/672), a Companion, who died in
Basra.
118 on taqlīd

follow the Sunnah of the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings
of God be on him, to judge by it and to refer to it, until decisive evidence
is established about the abrogation of the relevant part thereof. Or, until
the whole community agrees to act contrary to what is in it. And this
second option is absolutely impossible. For the community—and God be
praised—did not agree to abandon practicing a single Sunnah, except in
favor of one whose abrogation was well known to the community. In such
a case the community agreed to act on the abrogating ḥadīth or Sunnah,
and not the abrogated. As for abandoning a Sunnah because of the opin-
ion of an individual, this can never happen, no matter who that individual
is.” Only God grants success.

The Imitator Opposes the Command of God,

His Messenger, and His Own Scholars
20. The party of imitation has adopted the path of opposition to the
Command of God, His Messenger, the guidance of the Companions
and the norms of their own scholars. They tread a path never taken
by the people of knowledge. As for the Command of God, He de-
creed that whatever the Muslims disagree over be referred to Him
and His Messenger, while the imitators say, “We will refer what we
disagree on [523] to the ones we imitate.” According to the command
of His Messenger, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, in
cases of dispute, he, his Sunnah, and the Sunnah of the Rightly
Guided Caliphs must be adopted. He commanded that it be grasped
and held on to firmly, while the imitators say, “Rather, when in dis-
pute, we hold on to the view of the one we imitate. We prefer it over
everything that opposes it.”

As for the guidance of the Companions, it is known as a matter of neces-

sity that there was not among them a single one who imitated another
individual in everything the latter said, opposing all the other Compan-
ions by not rejecting anything from this person’s opinions and not adopt-
ing anything from theirs. To do this is among the greatest of innovations
and the most disgusting of novelties.
As for their opposition to their own scholars, it arises because the
scholars forbade imitation of themselves and warned against it, as can be
gathered from some of their narrations that have already been mentioned.
As for their adopting a path other than that of the people of knowledge,
this is because their way is to seek the opinions of the scholars and to
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 119

preserve them, look into them, and match these with the Qurʾan, the con-
firmed Sunnah from the Messenger of God, and the statements of the
righteous caliphs. So, whatever from these two sources [i.e., the Qurʾan
and the Sunnah], conforms to that which their own scholars have said,
they adopt it and follow God by following it, issuing judgments, and deliv-
ering verdicts according to it. Whatever part of the two sources, the Qurʾan
and the Sunnah, opposes this opinion of their own scholars, they do not
turn to. Instead they reject them.
Further, whatever matter is unclear to them is, for them, among the
matters subject to ijtihād. But, as such, the most that can be said about an
opinion issued on such a matter is that following it is permissible. It
cannot be said that it is obligatory, nor can anyone be compelled to follow
such an opinion. These [early] scholars did not say, “This opinion of mine
is the only truth, and that which is contrary to it is not so.” This is the path
of the people of knowledge followed by the predecessors and the later gen-
erations of scholars.

The Later Generations Changed the Condition

of the Religion
As for these later imitator-scholars, they took the opposite path and
changed the condition of the religion. They falsified the Book of God, the
Sunnah of His Messenger, and the opinions of all his Companions and
the Successors. They matched these with the opinions of the ones they
imitated. So, whatever part [of the Book, the Sunnah, and the opinions of
the Successors and Companions] agreed with the view of the one they
imitated, they said, “We accept this.” They submitted and yielded com-
pletely to this part thereof. Whatever opposed the opinions of their princi-
pals, they said, “Another person argued against this,” so they neither ac-
cepted nor adopted the Book, the Sunnah, and the opinions of the
Successors and Companions.
Their experts used every technique to reject the Book, the Sunnah, and
the opinions of the Successors and Companions, where these contradicted
the opinions of their principal—in every possible way. They sought every
stratagem by which they could reject these sources, even if these same
sources conformed to their schools in another area of law. They denounced
their rivals for rejecting these sources, even if the same techniques for
rejecting them were well established in their own schools. They also de-
nounced the rejection of the sources by their opponents, even though the
arguments of their opponents would be exactly those that they themselves
120 on taqlīd

employed. But in their own case they say, “Such arguments are not suffi-
cient to warrant rejection of the texts.”
The one who hopes to enjoy the sublime approval of God and seeks His
help [524] in defending the truth with which He sent His Messenger,
wherever and with whomever it is to be found, is unhappy with himself for
arguing thus, which is a sign of an inverted and blameworthy disposition.

God’s Condemnation of Those Who Split

His Religion
21. God, the Most Exalted, condemned those who instigate division in the
religion and split up into sects: Each sect rejoicing in that which is with
itself! [Q., al-Rūm, 30:32].

These are none other than the people of imitation, as opposed to the
people of knowledge. For the people of knowledge, even if they disagree,
neither create divisions in the religion nor become sects. Rather, they
are one group agreed on the necessity of seeking the truth, and they
agree that it is accorded favor over all else, and is preferred over every-
thing else, when it becomes apparent. They are one group whose aspira-
tions and path are united. The path and aim they share is one, but the
imitators are the exact opposite of this. Their aims are different and
their paths divergent, and neither in the means nor in the ends to those
means are they with the scholars.

God’s Condemnation of Those Who Split the Unity

of Their Religion into Pieces
22. God, the Most High, condemned the ones who split their religion into
sects [zubur]: Each party rejoicing in that which is with itself! [Q., al-
Rūm, 30:32]. Zubur are the written books that people are pleased to
follow over the Book of God and over what He sent His Messenger
with. The Most Exalted One says, O Apostles! Enjoy (all) things good and
pure and perform righteousness, for I am well-acquainted with (all) that
you do. And verily this community of yours is a single community, and I
am your Lord and Cherisher, therefore fear Me (and no other). But they
have cut off their affair (of religion) between them into sects, each sect re-
joicing in that which is with itself. [Q., al-Muʾminūn, 23:51–53].
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 121

So [God], the Most High, imposed the same obligation on the Prophets
as on their nations: to consume pure things, to act righteously, to wor-
ship Him alone, to obey only His command, and to refrain from split-
ting up in religious matters. The Messengers and their followers contin-
ued on this path, obeying the Command of God, receiving His Mercy
until disagreements emerged that occasioned splits between them,
every sect rejoicing over what it had. So whosoever reflects on these
verses and applies them to contemporary times will learn the reality of
the matter and will learn which of the two parties he hails from. And
God is the Helper.

23. God, the Most High, said, Let there arise out of you a group of people in-
viting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is
wrong. They are the ones to attain felicity. [Q., Āl-ʿImrān, 3:104]. He spec-
ified these people as the successful ones, to the exclusion of all others.
The ones who call to righteousness are those who call to the Book of
God and the Sunnah of His Messenger, not the ones who call to the
opinions of others.

[525] God’s Condemnation of Those Who Refuse

to Refer All Disputes to His Authority
24. God, the Most High, condemned the one who, when he is called to
turn to God and to His Messenger, turns away and is content to judge
by something else. This is the quality of the people of imitation. The
Most High said, When it is said to them, “Come to what God has revealed,
and to the Messenger,” you see the hypocrites avert their faces from you in
disgust. [Q., al-Nisāʾ, 4:61].

So, whosoever turns away from the one who calls him to that which God
and His Messenger brought, toward something other than that, will bear
this condemnation, some to a great extent, others less so.

Truth Lies in One Opinion

25. It is to be said to the party of imitation, “The religion of God is one,
and it is to be found in the opinion of your principal and also in a
contradictory opinion that opposes it. So, are all these contradictory
122 on taqlīd

and conflicting opinions, which nullify and go against each other, the
religion of God?” If they respond, “Yes, these contradictory and con-
flicting opinions, some of which oppose each other, are all the reli-
gion of God,” they have opposed the statements of their own scholars.
For all of them were agreed that the truth can lie only in one opinion
out of many. Just as the correct direction of prayer can be only one
among all possible directions. Thus they depart from the Qurʾan, the
Sunnah, sound reasoning, and common sense. By saying this they
make the religion of God subservient to the opinions of men. If they
respond, “The undeniable truth is that the religion of God is one and
that is what God revealed in His Book and sent His Messengers with
and which He chose for His creation, just as the Prophet of this reli-
gion is one, and their direction of prayer is one, so whoever conforms
to this is correct and has two rewards, and whoever is mistaken has
one reward for his mistaken ijtihād,” then it is to be said to them,
“The obligation then is to seek out the truth, to exert one’s reasoning
and effort in attaining it to the greatest degree possible, because God,
the Most High, obliged His creation to fear Him to the extent of their
abilities. Fearing Him means complying with His commands and
abandoning what He forbids. Therefore, the believer must know
what he has been commanded with in order to act upon it, what he
has been prohibited from so as to stay away from it, and what is per-
missible for him in order to be able to carry it out. None of this
knowledge will come about, except with a kind of ijtihād and search
for the truth.” If he does not do this, then he has been given a respon-
sibility, and he will meet God without having fulfilled that which he
was entrusted with.

[526] The Call of the Messenger Was General

26. The call of the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God
be on him, was general, for the one who was alive in his time and for
the one who would come later, and this message is to last until the Day
of Resurrection. So the obligation on those who come after the Com-
panions is exactly the same, even if the attributes and qualities of this
obligation have changed with the passage of time. It is known as a
matter of necessity that the Companions would not match what they
heard from him, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
against the opinions of their own scholars. Rather, their scholars had
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 123

no opinions other than the opinions of the Messenger. Not a single

one of the Companions would pause before accepting what he heard
from another in order to establish its conformity with the views of yet
another scholar or of anyone else whose opinion was worthy of being
followed. This, then, is the obligation without which faith is not com-
plete. This is precisely what is obligatory on us and on all those sub-
ject to the law until the Day of Resurrection. It is known that this obli-
gation was not abrogated after his death, nor was it limited to his
Companions. So whoever departs from this approach has opposed
that religious obligation itself.

On the Multiplicity of Legal Opinions

and the Fallibility of Those Who Issue Them
27. The opinions of the scholars and their views cannot be collected or
bound. Further, it cannot be guaranteed that these opinions are free of
error, except where they do not differ, for their agreement can be noth-
ing but the truth. It is also impossible that God and His Messenger
directed us to fulfill an obligation that is boundless. He did not guar-
antee that the opinions of the scholars would be immune from error.
Nor has any evidence been established for us that, in a dispute be-
tween two parties, the opinion of one of them is to be preferred over
the other’s, let alone that the opinion of one should be rejected com-
pletely and that of the other accepted entirely. It is impossible that God
would legislate such a thing or that He would be satisfied with it,
except if one of the two parties to the dispute were a Messenger and
the other was a dissimulator lying against God, for only in such a case
would the obligation be to act as these imitators do with their princi-
pals and opponents.

Knowledge Must Decrease

28. The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, said,
“Islam began as something strange and it shall return to being some-
thing strange as when it began.” He thus informed us that knowledge
would decrease. Now, what the truthful one informed us about must
occur. But it is known that the books of the imitators appeared in the
East and West, and never were they more prevalent than they are now.
124 on taqlīd

We see them multiplying every year. The imitators memorize from

them whatever they are able to, word for word. Further, these manuals
and books are not unknown among the people. Rather, they are very
popular in their midst. Indeed they, and nothing else, are all that is
known. If this were the knowledge that God sent His Messenger with,
[527] the religion would always be gaining prominence, it would be on
the rise, and knowledge would be popular and manifest. This would
be contrary to what the truthful one [the Prophet] informed us would
happen.
29. There is much disagreement in the books of the imitators and in their
opinions, but there is no contradiction in that which is from God.
Rather, it is the truth, and each part of it reinforces the other. Each
testifies to [the truth of ] the rest. The Most High said, Had it been from
other than God, they would surely have found therein much contradiction.
[Q., al-Nisāʾ, 4:82].
30. It is not obligatory that a person imitate A (Zayd) instead of B (ʿUmar).
Rather, according to the imitators, it is permissible for him to turn
from one to the other. But if the opinion of the one he followed first
was more correct than that of the second, then you have allowed him
to turn from the truth to its opposite. This would be perverse. If, how-
ever, the second is the only one who is correct, then you have allowed
persistence in error [by allowing him to continue imitation of the
first]. If you respond, “Both contradictory opposing opinions are cor-
rect,” this is entirely impossible. You have no choice but to uphold one
of these three responses.
31. It is to be said to the imitator, “How did you come to know that the
truth is with the one you imitate and not with the one you do not?” If
he says, “I know this based on evidence,” then he is not an imitator.
And if it is said, “I know this by imitating him, for he issued this ver-
dict and believed in it, and his knowledge, his piety, and the commu-
nity’s high opinion of him all prevent him from saying anything other
than the truth,” it is to be said to him, “Was he infallible, according to
you, or could he commit an error?” If he says that he was infallible, he
has erred.

If he concedes that he was not infallible, then it is to be said to him, “How

can you be so sure that he did not err in those things in which you imitate
him and in which he opposed someone else?” If he says, “Even if he erred,
he is rewarded,” it is to be said, “Certainly he is rewarded for his ijtihād,
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 125

while you are not, for you did not come up with the [ijtihād that was the]
cause of this reward. Rather, you fell short of the obligatory following [of
the Prophet], in which case you are blameworthy.” If he says, “How is it
possible that God would reward him for his verdict, praise him for it, and
condemn the seeker of the verdict for accepting it? How can this possibly
make sense?,” then it is to be said to him, “If the seeker fell short and was
neglectful of his duty of seeking the truth despite his ability to do so,
blame and punishment would rightly fall on him. But if he exerted him-
self and did not fall short in what he had been commanded with, and if he
feared God as much as he was able, he will be duly rewarded. As for the
partisan who considers the opinion of his principal the arbiter of the
Qurʾan, the Sunnah, and the opinions of the Companions, weighing all
these against the former, adopting whatever matches the opinion of his
principal, rejecting what does not—such a one is more deserving of criti-
cism and condemnation than of reward and recompense.” If it is said, as
is the case when such an argument is presented, “I follow and imitate
him, and I do not know whether he is correct in his verdict [528] or not, so
the responsibility is on the one who delivered it, and I merely narrate his
statements,” it is to be said to him, “By doing this, have you absolved your-
self from being questioned by God about how you ruled between the
people and about the verdicts you issued to them?” By God, there exists for
the judges and muftīs an especially high standard of questioning, and
none shall overcome it, except the one who knew the truth, then judged
and issued verdicts according to it. As for the one who does not know the
truth and does not give verdicts according to it, he shall know when the
matter is unveiled [on the Day of Judgment] that he has no ground to
stand on.

The Reason for Preferring One Opinion

over Another
32. We say, “Did you adopt the opinion of so-and-so because he com-
manded this or because the Messenger of God, may God’s peace and
blessings be upon him, ordered this?” If you say, “Because of the
former,” you have made the opinion of a mere individual a legal proof.
This is manifest error. And if you were to say, “Because the Messenger
of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, said so,”
this would be yet more grave and repulsive. For this involves both
lying about the Messenger of God and attributing to him something
126 on taqlīd

that he did not say. It also involves false attribution to the principal,
who never said that this ruling of his was the ruling of God’s Messen-
ger, may the peace and blessings of God be on him. So your view re-
volves around two possibilities with no option of a third. Either you
make the opinion of a fallible person a proof in the religion, or you
falsely attribute to a sinless person something that he did not say. One
of these must be the case.

If you respond to this by saying that a choice between these two is not
necessary and, in fact, a third option remains, which is to say that, “We
say this because the Messenger of God, may God’s peace and blessings
be on him, commanded us to follow those who were more knowledge-
able than us. He also commanded us to ask the people of knowledge
when we do not know, and to refer what we do not know to them as they
can infer legal rulings. So we are following the command issued to us by
our Prophet.” To this it is to be said, “Have we been crooning [Ar. nudan-
din] about anything other than the necessity of following the commands
of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him? So come
and agree to this principle without which a person’s faith and religion
cannot be considered complete. We ask you, by the right of the One who
sent the Prophet, when his command appears and the ruling of the one
you imitate stands in contradiction to it, would you abandon the latter’s
opinion in favor of the opinion of the Prophet, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be on him, and throw the former’s opinion against a wall?
Would you prohibit reliance on his opinion and continue on this course,
until obedience to the Messenger has been truly attained as you claim?
Or would you still adopt your principal’s opinion and consign the com-
mand of the Messenger, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
to God? Would you say, ‘He was more knowledgeable about the Mes-
senger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, than us,
and he would not have opposed this ḥadīth had he not had knowledge of
another ḥadīth that abrogated this or contradicted this and that was a
stronger ḥadīth, or the ḥadīth which goes against his view must have
been deemed inauthentic by him?’ Would you then consider the state-
ment of the principal decisive [muḥkam] and the statement of the Mes-
senger merely ambiguous [mujmal]? If you had truly been following
your principal because the Messenger commanded you to adopt his
opinion, you would have accorded precedence to the opinion of the Mes-
senger at all times.” [529]
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 127

33. Where did the Messenger command you to adopt the opinion of one
of the scholars entirely and to abandon the opinions of his contempo-
raries and those who were more knowledgeable and closer to him? Is
this anything but attributing a command to the Messenger of God,
when, in reality, he never issued such a command at all?
34. What you have mentioned is, in itself, evidence against you. For God,
Exalted be He, has commanded, asking the people of remembrance.
And remembrance [dhikr] means the Qurʾan and the ḥadīth that God,
in His statement, commanded the Wives of His Prophet to recite: And
remember what is recited to you in your homes, of the Signs of God and His
Wisdom. [Q., al-Aḥzāb, 33:34]. This, then, is the knowledge that God
commanded us to follow. He commanded the one who does not have
knowledge to ask those who possess it. This is what is obligatory on
this person who has no knowledge, namely, to ask the people who do
know what God revealed to His Messenger, so that they can inform
him about it. Once they have done so, he cannot but follow that which
is revealed. This was the way of the scholars among the people of
knowledge. They did not have a specific person whom they would
imitate in everything he said. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās would ask the Com-
panions about the words, actions, and practices of the Messenger of
God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, and he would not
ask them about anything else. Likewise, the Companions would ask
the Wives of the Prophet, especially ʿĀʾishah, about the actions of the
Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, in
his house. Likewise, the Successors would only ask the Companions
about the affairs of their Prophet. Similar to this were the scholars of
law. As al-Shāfiʿī said to Aḥmad, “O Abū ʿAbdallāh, you are more
knowledgeable about ḥadīth than I am. So if you deem a ḥadīth to be
authentic, inform me, whether it is from Syria, Kufa, or Basra, so that
I may act according to it.” Not a single one of the people of knowledge
ever asked about the opinions of any individual and his school with a
view to adopting only this and opposing everything besides it.
35. The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, guided
the ones who sought a verdict for the man who was afflicted with a
wound to ask only about his ruling and Sunnah. He said, “They killed
him, may God destroy them.” He made this invocation against them
because they issued a verdict without knowledge. This demonstrates
the impermissibility of issuing a verdict based on imitation. For imita-
tion is not considered to be knowledge by agreement of the people. If
128 on taqlīd

the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
supplicated against him, that is a sign that the action of that individual
who issued a verdict without real knowledge was forbidden. This is
one of the proofs that indicate the impermissibility of imitation, so
what the imitators rely on is one of the strongest evidences against
them. And God is the Helper.

Similar to this incident is that of the laborer who committed zinā with the
wife of the one who hired him, and his father asked the people of knowl-
edge about the punishment to be inflicted on his son. When they informed
him about the Sunnah of the Messenger of God, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be on him, about the punishment to be given to the virgin
who commits zinā, the father of the laborer accepted this and did not
depart from their views [530]. He did not question them about their own
views and their affiliations to schools.

Regarding the H -
. adı̄th of Kalalah and the Attitude
of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar
36. As for their statement, “ʿUmar said about the issue of kalālah, ‘I would
feel embarrassed to disagree with Abū Bakr,’ and this can be regarded
as ʿUmar’s imitation of Abū Bakr,” there are five responses to this.

ʿUmar Did Not Imitate Abū Bakr

First, they have presented only an abridged form of the ḥadīth and have
concealed the part that invalidates their inference from it. However, we
shall mention it in its entirety: Shuʿbah said, from ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal*, from
al-Shaʿbī, that Abū Bakr said about kalālah, “I shall render judgment on
it according to my own view. If it is correct, it is a favor of God, and if it
is incorrect, it is from myself and the devil, and God is absolved of it.
[Kalālah] is when an individual dies without a child or a parent.” So
ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, said, “I would feel em-
barrassed to disagree with Abū Bakr.” [This shows that] ʿUmar was too
embarrassed to oppose Abū Bakr, when the latter himself had admitted

*
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿĀṣim b. Sulaymān al-Tamīmī al-Baṣrī (d. 140/757), a renowned
traditionist.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 129

the possibility of his making an error and acknowledged that not all his
opinions were correct and infallible. This is also demonstrated by the
fact that ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb acknowledged, at the time of his own death,
that he had not issued a judgment on kalālah at all and that he had not
understood the issue.72

Matters in Which ʿUmar Opposed Abū Bakr

Second, the issues on which ʿUmar disagreed with Abū Bakr are too well
known to require repetition. He opposed him, for instance, on the issue of
the prisoners of the apostates captured by the Muslims. Abū Bakr impris-
oned them, while ʿUmar opposed him. His disagreement reached the
extent that he sent them back to their families as free women, except those
among them who gave birth to children from their masters. So he quashed
Abū Bakr’s ruling.73 Among these women was Khawlah al-Ḥanafīyyah
Umm Muḥammad b. ʿAlī.* So how does this compare to the way the imita-
tors act in relation to their principals?
He also disagreed with Abū Bakr about the land that was gained after
victory in battle. Abū Bakr divided this among the fighters, and ʿUmar
established it as a trust [waqf].74 He also disagreed with him about prefer-
ential shares in issuing stipends,† in which Abū Bakr favored equal treat-
ment of all the Companions of the Prophet, and ʿUmar favored preferen-
tial shares.75 Among these issues was that of appointing a political
successor, about which ʿUmar said explicitly, “If I were to appoint a suc-
cessor, Abū Bakr too has done so, and if I were not to appoint a successor,
then the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on
him, also did not appoint a successor.” Ibn ʿUmar said, “By God, as soon
as he mentioned the Messenger, I realized that he would not appoint a
successor.”76 This is how the people of knowledge act when a Sunnah of
the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
seems to them to contradict the opinion of someone else. They do not
equate the Sunnah with anything else, as opposed to the imitators, whose
position is contrary to this, as they explicitly acknowledge. Also well known

*
Khawlah al-Ḥanafīyyah Umm Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, the mother of Muḥammad, the son of
the fourth caliph, ʿAlī.
†
The disagreement related to whether those who had participated in the first of the Proph-
et’s battles with him should be given a preferential share.
130 on taqlīd

under this topic is ʿUmar’s disagreement with Abū Bakr about the inheri-
tance shares of the true grandfather and the brothers of the deceased
when inheriting together.77 [532]

Returning to a Refutation of the Imitators, Based

on the Practice of ʿUmar
Third, even if one supposes that ʿUmar imitated Abū Bakr in everything
he said, this would not give any respite to the imitators of those who came
after the Companions and the Successors, who do not come close to or
anywhere near the Companions in merit. So if, as you claim, ʿUmar’s ex-
ample is a fair one, you should follow it and imitate Abū Bakr and aban-
don imitation of everyone besides him. God and His Messenger and all of
His creation would praise you for this imitation in a way that they would
not praise you for imitating someone other than Abū Bakr.
Fourth, when it comes to their own scholars, the imitators do not feel
embarrassed about disagreeing with them, as ʿUmar felt embarrassed
over disagreeing with Abū Bakr. This is because they oppose the rulings
of Abū Bakr—and of ʿUmar alongside him—and are not embarrassed to
do so, in favor of the opinion of the scholars they imitate. Rather, some of
their extreme partisans have explicitly stated in some of their books of ju-
risprudence that it is not permissible to imitate Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, but
it is obligatory to imitate al-Shāfiʿī. By God! How ludicrous it would be for
God to command that al-Shāfiʿī be imitated and for Him to forbid you
from imitating Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. As for us, we call God as a witness
over us, and He shall ask about this on the day we meet Him, that if an
opinion is authentically reported from the rightly guided Caliphs, the ones
whom the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on
him, commanded us to obey and to follow, then, even if all the people of
the earth were to gather against this, we would not turn toward the opin-
ion of any one of them. We praise God that He saved us from that which
afflicted the one who forbade imitation of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar and obli-
gated imitation of his own principal among the scholars.
In summary, even if ʿUmar’s imitation of Abū Bakr were to be accepted,
there would be no relief to be gained in this by the ones who imitate those
whom God and His Messenger have not obligated imitation of. God never
made such a person a standard by which to judge the Book and Sunnah of
His Messenger, nor would this person ever claim this for himself.
Fifth, the most that can be said about Abū Bakr and ʿUmar is that ʿUmar
followed Abū Bakr in a particular issue. Does this prove the permissibility
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 131

of adopting all of the opinions of a specific individual and giving them the
same rank as the explicit texts [nuṣūs] of the Lawgiver, and referring to no
one other than that person, not even to the texts of the Lawgiver, unless
they agree with what he has said? By God, the whole community is agreed
on the impermissibility of this. Nor did this appear in the community until
after the passing away of the blessed generations. [533]

Arguments Invalidating Imitation

37. As for your statement, “ʿUmar said to Abū Bakr, ‘our opinion follows
yours’.” It seems that the one who advances this as an argument for
imitation has heard the people uttering a statement that is [in its brief
form] sufficient for the intelligent folk, but he restricts the ḥadīth in
which these words are to be found to just these words and is content
with that. However, this ḥadīth is among the greatest nullifiers of his
position. It is found in the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī,* from Ṭāriq b. Shihāb,†
who said, “A delegation of Buzākhah, from the Asad and Ghaṭfān
tribes, came, asking Abū Bakr for a truce. He presented them with a
choice between a war leading to exile and an ignominious [mukhziyah]
peace. They said, ‘We understand the war that, if lost, would lead to
exile, but what is this ignominious peace?’ He said, ‘We shall take your
weapons, fighting horses, and possessions as booty, and you shall
return to us our possessions that you took from us. You must also pay
us compensation for our dead, while your dead, being in the fire of
Hell, will not be compensated for. You will also dissociate from the
people who are obsessed with agriculture, until God makes the succes-
sor of His Prophet [i.e., Abū Bakr, the caliph] and the Migrants accept
an excuse for your actions.’ So Abū Bakr presented this decision of his
before the people. ʿUmar then rose and said, ‘You have an opinion, and
we shall advise you about it. What you have said about the war leading
to exile is well said, as is what you have said about the truce of igno-
miny. And what you have said about us taking what we got from them
and them not taking what they got from us, this too is well said. As for
what you said about them compensating us for our dead and their own
dead being in the fire, since our fallen ones fought and were killed in

*
Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), author of the most renowned work of
ḥadīth, the Ṣaḥīḥ that bears his name.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh Ṭāriq b. Shihāb b. ʿAbd Shams al-Bajalī (d. 82/701), a Kufan narrator.
132 on taqlīd

obedience to God, their reward is with God, and there is no compensa-

tion to be offered for them.’ So the people agreed with what ʿUmar had
said.” In some versions of this ḥadīth are mentioned the words, “You
have an opinion, and our opinion follows yours.”78 So, is there any
succor in this narration for the party of imitation? [534]

Ibn Masʿūd Would Not Imitate ʿUmar

38. As for their statement, “Ibn Masʿūd adopted the views of ʿUmar,” the
disagreements of Ibn Masʿūd with ʿUmar are too well known to re-
quire citation. He agreed with him as one scholar agrees with another.
Even if he adopted the opinions of ʿUmar in imitation of him, this was
only in approximately four issues, which we shall state. Consider also
that he was one of his functionaries, and ʿUmar was the sovereign
Commander of the Believers. As for his disagreements with him,
these occurred in approximately one hundred areas. Among these
issues in which they disagreed are the following: it has been authenti-
cally reported from Ibn Masʿūd that he would free the slave woman
who bears children to her master, in proportion to the share of inheri-
tance of her child in his father’s inheritance.79 Ibn Masʿūd also placed
his hands between his knees when bowing in ritual prayer until his
death,80 while ʿUmar, when bowing, was accustomed to place his
hands on his knees.81 Ibn Masʿūd said about a man’s pronouncement
that his wife was forbidden to him, that this was like an oath that had
to be atoned for if violated,82 while ʿUmar [535] said that this counted
as a [536] single pronouncement of divorce.83 Ibn Masʿūd prohibited
the marriage of an adulteress to an adulterer forever,84 whereas ʿUmar
would ask them to repent and marry one another.85 Ibn Masʿūd would
view the sale of a slave woman as her divorce,86 [537] while ʿUmar held
that she would not be divorced by this.87 There are numerous exam-
ples of such divergences in their views.

The Pre-eminence of Ibn Masʿūd Among the

Companions, Based on His Knowledge
It is strange that those who rely on this argument approve neither of imi-
tating Ibn Masʿūd nor of imitating ʿUmar, while imitation of Mālik, Abū
Ḥanīfah, and al-Shāfiʿī is dearer to them and more prevalent among them.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 133

Furthermore, how can they equate their imitation of men [who are be-
neath Ibn Masʿūd in rank] to Ibn Masʿūd’s imitation, when he was the one
who said, “The Companions of the Messenger of God, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, knew that I was the most learned of them re-
garding His Book. If I were to learn that someone else is more knowledge-
able than I am, I would undertake a journey to learn from him.” Shaqīq
said, “I sat in the circles of the Companions of the Messenger of God, and
I did not hear a single one of them deny this.”88 Ibn Masʿūd also used to
say, “I swear by the One besides whom there is no other God, there is no
chapter of the Qurʾan but that I am the most knowledgeable about where
it was revealed, and there is no verse but that I am the most knowledgeable
about the reason it was revealed. If I were to learn of anyone who was more
learned in the Book of God than I am, I would journey to meet him so long
as camels could take me to him.”89 Abū Mūsā l-Ashʿarī * said, “For a while
we would regard Ibn Masʿūd and his mother as belonging to the house-
hold of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, be-
cause of their frequent visits there and their being attached to them.”90
Abū Masʿūd al-Badrī† said, [538] while ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd was standing
nearby, “I do not know of anyone left by the Messenger of God, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him, after his death, who is more knowl-
edgeable regarding what God has revealed than this man who is standing.”
Abū Musā said, “He would be present with the Messenger, while we would
be absent, and he would be allowed to enter into his presence, while we
would be refused permission.”91 ʿUmar wrote thus to the inhabitants of
Kufa, “I am sending ʿAmmār‡ among you as your governor, and ʿAbdallāh
b. Masʿūd as your teacher and advisor, and they are among the most out-
standing of the Companions of the Messenger of God, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, from among the Companions who partici-
pated in the Battle of Badr. So learn from them, and follow them, for by
giving you ʿAbdallāh [b. Masʿūd], I have preferred you over myself.”92 It is
also authentically reported from him, that he asked for the verdict of Ibn
Masʿūd regarding the irrevocable divorce and acted according to it.93 But

*
Abū Mūsā ʿAbdallāh b. Qays b. Salīm al-Ashʿarī (d. 44/664), a Companion of the Prophet.
†
Abū Masʿūd ʿUqbah b. ʿAmr b. Thaʿlabah al-Anṣārī, a renowned Companion, who wit-
nessed the battle of Badr and died circa 40/660, according to some reports.
‡
ʿAmmār b. Yāsir al-ʿAnsī (d. 37/657), a Companion of the Prophet, who witnessed the battle
of Badr.
134 on taqlīd

this was not done in imitation of Ibn Masʿūd. Rather, it was after he had
heard that which convinced him of its truth. This is how some Compan-
ions used to act, when basing their actions on the opinions of others. It is
also authentically reported from Ibn Masʿūd that he said, “Be a scholar or
a student, but do not be a freeloader.” So he excluded the freeloader—and
this is the imitator—from the company of scholars and teachers. The truth
is as he stated it, may God be pleased with him. Truly, such a person is not
with the scholars nor with those who learn with knowledge and evidence,
as should be clear to whoever reflects on this.

The Companions Did Not Imitate Each Other

39. As for their statement, “ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd abandoned his own view
for that of ʿUmar, and Abū Mūsā abandoned his own view for that of
ʿAlī, and Zayd abandoned his view for that of ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb.” The
response to this is, “They did not abandon what they knew of the
Sunnah in imitation of these three, as is the practice of the people of
imitation. Rather, the one who reflects on the lives of these people
sees that, when a Sunnah became known to them, they would not
[539] abandon it for the statement of anyone else, no matter who he
was.” Ibn ʿUmar abandoned the opinion of ʿUmar, when the Sunnah
became apparent to him. Ibn ʿAbbās denounced the one who coun-
tered the report in the Sunnah that had reached him by saying, “but
Abū Bakr and ʿUmar said [the opposite].” Ibn ʿAbbās would say [when
he heard someone countering the Sunnah with the opinion of some-
one else], “I fear that stones from the sky will be sent down upon you
[as a punishment]. For I say that the Messenger of God, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him said this, and you respond,
‘But Abū Bakr and ʿUmar said something to the contrary.’”94 May
God have mercy on Ibn ʿAbbās, and may He be well pleased with
him. By God, imagine if he had witnessed these later generations, to
whom, when it is said, “The Messenger of God, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, said this,” they respond, “But other
people said something different”—and this too for someone who is
not of the same rank as the Companions—rather he is far beneath
that. The Companions would abandon their opinions in favor of
those of other Companions because they recognized that their opin-
ions and those of others were equal. So, when the evidence supported
the view of others, they would accept that and abandon their own
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 135

views. This is exactly what the people of knowledge did, and Ibn
ʿAbbās was more beloved to them than he is to these later scholars.
This is, however, the exact opposite of the manner of the people of
imitation in every way.

This is the correct way to respond to their citing as evidence of their view
the statement of Masrūq, “I would not abandon the view of Ibn Masʿūd for
the view of anyone else.”

The Real Import Behind the Messenger’s Order

to Follow Muʿādh
40. As for their statement, “The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of
God be on him, said, ‘Muʿādh* has set a practice for you so follow
him’.” Strange is the one who argues for the validity of imitation of an
individual in the religion of God on the basis of this ḥadīth. The
Sunnah of Muʿādh was not established as a valid practice to be fol-
lowed except by the words of the Prophet, may the peace and blessings
of God be on him, “Follow him.” This is just like the call to prayer that
became a Sunnah only after the Prophet commanded that it be given,
approved of it, and legislated it as part of the law.95 It did not happen
by the occurrence of the dream [of the Companion who, before this,
saw the call to prayer being delivered in his dream]. [540]

If it is said, “what then is the meaning of the ḥadīth,” it is to be said, “It

means that God legislated Muʿādh’s action as a Sunnah for you.” It became
a Sunnah for us when the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be
on him, commanded us to do it, not because of Muʿādh’s performing it. It
is authentically reported from Muʿādh that he said, “How would you fare
when three things occur: the pursuit of this world which will lead you to
smite each others’ throats, the mistakes of the scholar, and the hypocrite
using the Qurʾan in disputation? As for the scholar, if he is rightly guided,
do not imitate him in matters of religion, and if he is overcome by error,
then do not become disheartened, for a believer is sometimes overcome
by error, [from which] he then repents. As for the Qurʾan, it has lampposts

*
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muʿādh b. Jabal (d. 18/639), a Companion of the Prophet who died of
the plague in Palestine.
136 on taqlīd

like the ones you find on the pathways, which are not concealed from
anyone. So do not ask about that which you know. And whatever causes
doubts within you, then entrust it to the one who knows about it. As for
the world, whoever God enriches in his heart has indeed succeeded, and
for the one who was not blessed with this, the world is of no benefit to
him.” So Muʿādh, may God be pleased with him, disclosed the truth and
forbade imitation in everything. He further commanded that the clear
meaning (ẓāhir) of the Qurʾan be followed and that one ought to ignore
whoever opposes this, and he commanded suspending one’s view wher-
ever there was a difficulty. All of this is contrary to the way of the imitators.
God is the One who grants ability. [541]

Obedience to Those in Authority

41. As for your statement, “God, the Exalted, commands obedience to
those in authority, which is a reference to the scholars, and obedience
to them is imitating them in their legal opinions.” The response to
this is that it has been said by some that the people of authority are the
rulers and by others that they are the scholars. Both of these views are
narrated from Imām Aḥmad. The truth is that the verse includes both
groups, and obedience to them is part of obedience to the Messenger.
But the imitators have not understood that these people are to be
obeyed only in submission to God, if they command that which was
ordered by God and His Messenger. The scholars are the ones who
disseminate and proclaim the orders of the Messenger, and the rulers
are the ones who enforce his orders. As such, obedience to them rests
on submission to God and His Messenger. Is there any proof in this
verse for preferring the views of men over the Sunnah of the Messen-
ger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him and prefer-
ring imitation [of men] over the Sunnah?
42. This verse is one of the most cogent proofs against you. It is also among
the strongest ones invalidating imitation. This is for several reasons.

First, the verse contains a command to obey God which means to do what
He orders and abstain from what He prohibits.
Second, the verse commands obedience to His Messenger. But a person
cannot obey the Messenger until he is aware of the commands of God and
His Messenger. As for the one who confirms that he is not among the
people who have knowledge of the commands of God and His Messenger
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 137

and that, when it comes to knowing about them, he imitates the people of
knowledge, it is impossible for him to verify what this obedience to God
and His Messenger entails.
Third, the people of authority have prohibited imitation of themselves,
as has been authentically reported from Muʿādh b. Jabal, ʿAbdallāh b.
Masʿūd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās and others among the
Companions. We mentioned explicit statements about this from the four
Imāms and others besides them. As such, if obedience to them in this is
necessary, that itself would invalidate imitation [because they themselves
prohibited imitation, and this prohibition would also have to be obeyed].
If, however, it is not obligatory, then the inference drawn from this verse
by the imitators is incorrect.
Fourth, God, the Exalted, said in the same verse, If you differ in anything
among yourselves, refer it to God and His Messenger, if you do believe in God
and the Last Day [Q., al-Nisāʾ, 4:59], which is clear in nullifying the validity
of imitation. What is prohibited here is for the disputant to return to mere
opinion, to a school, or to imitation.
If it is said, “Then what is this obedience that is owed especially to
them? For if they are obeyed regarding the knowledge concerning God
and His Messenger that they convey to us, then our obedience is to God
and His Messenger and not to them.”
It is to be said, “This, indeed, is the truth. They are obeyed out of obedi-
ence to God and His Messenger. They are not obeyed independently of that.
This is why God linked obedience to them to that of the Messenger, and He
did not repeat this command [‘obey!’] when it came to the people of authority.
However, he did issue the command [‘obey!’] independently a second time
when mentioning the Messenger so that it would not be mistakenly [542]
assumed that the Messenger is being followed out of obedience to someone
else, as is the case with those in authority. For this is not the case at all.
Rather, obedience to the Messenger is an independent obligation, regardless
of whether or not his commands and prohibitions are present in the Qurʾan.”

Merits of the Successors and How They Qualify

As Such
43. As for their statement, “God, the Perfect and Majestic, praised the first
predecessors among the Immigrants and the Helpers who invited the
Prophet to reside in Medina and those who followed them with sincer-
ity. And this is precisely what imitation is.”
138 on taqlīd

How true is the first part of this proposition, how false the second! Rather,
the verse is one of the strongest proofs against the party of imitation, for
following the scholars means adopting their path and methodology. But
they forbade imitation and being a freeloader. They also told us that a
person with this quality lacked true insight.
There was not a single one among them (and all praise is due to God)
who was on the same path as these imitators. God saved and protected
them from what happened to the one who rejected the texts in favor of
imitation of the opinions of mere men. The imitators tread on a path
never taken by the people of knowledge. Therein lies their opposition to
them. The ones who truly follow them with sincerity are the people of
knowledge and insight who do not prefer any view, analogy, reasoned ar-
gument, or the opinion of any scholar over the Book of God and the
Sunnah of His Messenger. Nor do they make the school of one person the
arbiter of the Qurʾan and the Sunnah. These, then, are their true follow-
ers. May God, by His Grace and Mercy, include us among them.

Who Are the True Followers of the Scholars?

44. If the imitator-scholars, whom all the scholars exclude from the cate-
gory of the people of knowledge, and who admit themselves that they
are not so, were the true followers of the principals, then those emi-
nent scholars who relied on proofs could not have been among their
adherents. Thus, when it came to following the principals, the igno-
rant imitator-scholars would end up more felicitous than those schol-
ars who relied on evidence. But this is truly impossible.

Rather, it is the one who opposes a single one of them on the basis of evi-
dence who is truly a follower of that scholar, not the one who accepts his
statement without evidence. The former is the stance adopted by the true
followers of the Imāms. I seek the refuge of God if these imitators, who
treat the statements of the scholars as they do the clear texts [of the Qurʾan
and the Sunnah]—who, in fact, reject the scriptural texts in favor of the
statements of their principals—are the true followers of the Imāms. They
are not the true adherents of their scholars at all. The only ones who are so
are those actually on their path, pursuing their methodology.
Some imitators objected to the teaching of the Shaykh al-Islam [Ibn
Taymiyyah] in the Ibn al-Ḥanbalī seminary, which was established as a
trust for the Ḥanbalīs themselves, while the scholar who performs ijtihād
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 139

is necessarily not one of them. So he said to them, “Whatever I took from

the school of Aḥmad, I took on the basis of my knowledge of it, not in
imitation of it.”
These imitators cannot be acting [534] according to the schools of their
principals, as opposed to the contemporaries of those scholars who would
never imitate them.
Thus the people who most often followed Mālik are Ibn Wahb and his
contemporaries, who judge only on the basis of evidence, submitting to
proofs wherever found.
Similarly, Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad, despite their frequent opposi-
tion to him, followed Abū Ḥanīfah more than the imitators.
Likewise al-Bukhārī, Muslim*, Abū Dāʾūd, Athram,† and this class
from the companions of Aḥmad follow him more closely than the ones
who merely imitate him and ascribe themselves to him [i.e., his school].
Therefore, in the same vein, an endowment of a trust for the followers
of the Imāms, who are people of knowledge and who follow evidence, is
preferable to an endowment for the imitators.

A Brief Statement on the H

. adı̄th, “My Companions
Are Like the Stars”
45. As for their statement that the famous ḥadīth, “My Companions are
like stars, whomever among them you follow, you will be guided,” is
sufficient to prove the validity of imitation, there are several responses.

First, that this ḥadīth was narrated by way of Aʿmash, from Abū Sufyān,‡
from Jābir, and from the ḥadīth of Saʿīd b. al-Muṣayyib,§ from ʿUmar, and
by way of Ḥamzah al-Jazarī,** from Nāfiʿ,†† from Ibn ʿUmar. However,

*
Abū l-Ḥuṣayn Muslim b. al-Ḥajjāj al-Nīsābūrī al-Qushayrī d. (261/875), author of the re-
nowned Ṣaḥīḥ collection that bears his name.
†
Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Hāniʾ al-Athram (d. after 260/873), a disciple of
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and a traditionist.
‡
Abū Sufyān Ṭalḥah b. Nāfiʿ al-Iskāf, a Successor who claims to report from some of the
Companions.
§
Abū Muḥammad Saʿīd b. al-Muṣayyib al-Makhzūmī (d. 140/757), a renowned Successor.
**
Ḥamzah b. Abī Ḥamzah al-Jazarī, a ḥadīth narrator, who has been discredited by leading
traditionists, such as al-Bukhārī.
††
Abū ʿAbdallāh Nāfiʿ (d. 117/735), client of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar and a renowned traditionist.
140 on taqlīd

nothing about it is conclusive. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said that Muḥammad b.

Ibrāhīm b. Saʿīd narrated to us that Abū ʿAbdallāh b. Mufriḥ told them
that Muḥammad b. Ayyūb al-Ṣamūt narrated to them that al-Bazzār* said
to us, “As for what was related from the Prophet, may the peace and bless-
ings of God be upon him, ‘My Companions are like stars, whomever
among them you follow, you will be guided,’ this is not authentically at-
tributed to him.”
Second, it is said to these imitators, “How, then, did you come to aban-
don imitation of those stars by whom you were to be guided? [544] How
did you then end up imitating those who were far beneath them [in rank]?
Do you not prefer the imitation of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, and
Aḥmad to that of imitation of Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī?” You
thus contradicted the clear import of the ḥadīth. You used the ḥadīth to
argue for the validity of imitating those with whom the ḥadīth was not at
all concerned.
Third, this ḥadīth should obligate you to imitate those Companions
who allow the grandfather to receive a share of inheritance alongside the
siblings of the deceased96 and of those Companions who forbid the
grandfather a share in a similar scenario. Likewise, you would have to
imitate the Companion who says that a man’s oath to stay away from his
wife is just an oath [which can be atoned for if it is violated]97 and the
Companion who says that this counts as a divorce.98 And you ought to
imitate the Companion who forbids having intercourse with two slaves
who are sisters99 and the one who regards this as permissible.100 Like-
wise, you would imitate the Companion who allows the fasting person to
eat snow101 [545] and the one who forbids this for him.102 And [similarly]
imitate the Companion who says that a widow is in a waiting period for
the lesser of two terms103 and the one who says she is to wait until deliv-
ery of the child.104 [And you would have to] imitate the Companion who
prohibits the one in a state of ritual consecration from using incense105
and the one who allows this.106 You would also have to imitate the Com-
panion who permits the sale of one dirham for two dirhams107 [546] and
the one who considers this to be forbidden108 and also the Companion
who regards a bath as obligatory [upon a man who has sexual intercourse]
even if there was no emission [of semen]109 [547] and the one who says a

*
Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAmr b. ʿAbd al-Khāliq al-Bazzār, d. 292/904, a renowned Basran
ḥadīth compiler.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 141

bath is not obligatory in such a case.110 You must also imitate the one who
allows a share of inheritance for the distant kindred111 [548] and of the
one who excludes them from receiving a share.112 In the same way, you
would be compelled to imitate the Companion who holds that marriage
becomes unlawful by either adult having been breast-fed by the close
relative of the other,113 and the one who does not agree with this.114 Fur-
thermore, would you [not have to] imitate [549] the [Companion] who
prohibits ritual purification with dust for the one who is in a state of
impurity115 and also of the one who regards this as obligatory?116 And
[would you not also have to] imitate the Companion who regards the
triple pronouncement of divorce as one117 and the one who regards this
as three separate pronouncements?118 [550] And [the same would apply in
the case of ] the one who regards it as obligatory to transform the nulli-
fied major pilgrimage into a minor pilgrimage119 and the one who ruled
against this120—that is, you would have to imitate them both. And [you
would be imitating] the Companion who permits consumption of the
meat of domesticated donkeys121 and of the one who forbids this. And
also of the Companion who holds that ablution is nullified by touching
the private parts122 [551] and the one who does not regard this to be the
case.123 [553] And you would have to imitate the Companion who regards
the sale of a slave woman as her divorce124 and the one who does not.125
And also the Companion who holds that the one who fulfilled his vow to
abstain from sexual relations with his wife is to be stopped at the end of
the period of his vow [from resuming sexual relations with her] [554] and
the one who would not stop him after this period.126
There are many, many examples of such disagreement between the
Companions of the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of
God be upon him. So if you accept this, you should not seek to establish
the superiority of one opinion over another through evidences, nor the
superiority of one school over another. Rather, you should provide a person
the option to adopt whichever opinion he desires. You should not object to
the one who belongs to another school and accepts the opinion of one of
the Companions. If you do not allow all this, then you are truly the people
who nullify this ḥadīth by opposing it and saying something that is against
its import. You cannot free yourself from this contradiction.
Fourth, following the Companions is [to be interpreted as] following
the Qurʾan and the Sunnah, and everyone who invites [people] to these
sources is obeyed. So, following them is what renders imitation imper-
missible for you, and it necessitates seeking evidences and judging only
142 on taqlīd

by them, as was the practice of the Companions themselves, may God be

pleased with them. Thus, the ḥadīth is among the strongest arguments
against you, and God is the one who grants strength.

The Companions Are the Ones Whose Practices

We Have Been Commanded to Follow
46. As for your statement, “ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd said, ‘Whoever among
you adopts a Sunnah, let him adopt the Sunnah of the ones who exist
no more. These are the Companions of Muḥammad.’” This is one of
the most convincing evidences against you, for many reasons. This
statement prohibits adopting the Sunnah of those who are alive while
you imitate them and those who exist no more.

[555] Second, ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd specified those who were to be followed,

and they were the best of creation, and the most righteous, the most
learned of the community of Muslims—the Companions—may God be
pleased with them, while you imitators do not approve of imitating or fol-
lowing them, but you approve of doing so for those far beneath them in
rank.
Third, adopting their Sunnah means following them, which means
that the follower acts as they acted, and this itself violates the principle of
not accepting the opinion of anyone without evidence, which the Com-
panions never did.
Fourth, the impermissibility of imitation is authentically reported
from Ibn Masʿūd himself, who referred to the imitator as a freeloader
having no real intellect. Thus it is learned that by the word “following,” he
cannot have meant “imitation.”

47. As for your statement, “It is authentically reported that the Prophet,
may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, said, ‘Follow my
Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided Caliphs after me,’ and
also his statement, ‘Follow the two who come after me, Abū Bakr and
ʿUmar.’” These are the strongest evidences we have in establishing the
evil of the imitation you practice, for it is against the practice of the
Rightly Guided Caliphs. It is known as a matter of necessity that none
of them would abandon the Sunnah, once it became apparent, in
order to adopt the opinion of someone else, no matter who that other
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 143

person was. Nor would any one of them hold a contradictory opinion
himself alongside the Sunnah. But the practice of the people of imita-
tion is quite unlike this.
48. Further, the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon
him, [in his words,] bound his Sunnah to that of his Companions. So
adopting their Sunnah does not entail imitating them. Rather, it con-
stitutes following the Sunnah of the Messenger of God, may the
peace and blessings of God be upon him, just as the call to prayer is
not delivered in imitation of the one who saw this in his dream, and
performing what one missed of one’s ritual prayer in congregation
after the imām has made the salutation of peace is not done in imita-
tion of Muʿādh. Rather, all this is done in obedience to the [Prophet,
who was the] one who commanded us to act so. Is the imitation that
you perform similar to this?

The Later Generations Do Not Adopt the Sunnah

nor Do They Decide According to the Judgments
of the Companions
49. Further, you are among the foremost opponents of the command of
these two aḥādīth. For you do not regard adopting the Sunnah of the
Rightly Guided Caliphs (or of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar) or deciding by
their actions, to be obligatory. Their opinions constitute no proof for
you [556]. Some of your misguided partisans have explicitly forbidden
performing imitation of them, while imitation of al-Shāfiʿī is still re-
garded as obligatory by them. So it is most peculiar that you should
deploy as proof something that you are foremost in opposing. And
God grants success.
50. The ḥadīth is a proof against you in every way. For it commands, in
all cases of frequent disagreement, that recourse be made to the
Sunnah of the Messenger and of the caliphs, whereas you command
that the view of a particular scholar and his school be followed.
Second, it warns of newly invented matters in the religion. It also
informs us that every such matter is an innovation, which is mis-
guidance. Now, it is known, as a matter of necessity, that the imita-
tion you practice, for which you abandoned the Qurʾan and Sunnah
of the Messenger (and against which you weighed the Qurʾan and
Sunnah and which you rendered a criterion by which they are to be
144 on taqlīd

judged) is among the most blameworthy of innovations, from which

God protected the first generations whom He honored and chose
over all others. In conclusion, whatever was established by the righ-
teous caliphs for the community, is a proof which it is not permis-
sible to turn away from. How does this compare to what the people
of imitation say: that their sunnah is not a proof and that imitation
of them is not permissible?

The Messenger Predicted that There Would Be

Much Dispute in His Community
51. The Messenger, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, said in
the same ḥadīth, “So whoever among you lives after me will see much
disagreement.” This is a condemnation of those who disagree. It is also
a warning against adopting their path. Certainly disagreement has
arisen and worsened because of imitation and its proponents. They
are the ones who divided the religion into factions, each one glorifying
and turning to its principal and condemning those who oppose him.
They do not believe in the correctness of acting by the others’ views, as
if the others belonged to an entirely different community. They exert
and outdo themselves in refuting each other. They say, “Their books
and our books differ, as do their scholars and ours and their schools
and ours.” All this they have done despite the fact that there is one
Prophet, one Qurʾan, one religion and one God. It is obligatory on all
to submit to common terms between them. They must not follow
anyone other than the Prophet. They must not appoint alongside him
someone whose [ambiguous] words carry as much authority as his ex-
plicit ones. They must not take others as lords besides God. If they
come to agreement on this, and if they all submit to the one who calls
them to God and His Messenger, referring to the Sunnah and the nar-
rations of the Companions for guidance, disagreement will be re-
duced, even if it does not entirely disappear from the world. This is
why you will find that the people who have the least disagreement
among themselves are the people of the Sunnah and ḥadīth. There is
not, in the whole world, a faction more in harmony and with lesser
disagreement in their midst than them because they base themselves
on this principle [557]. The more a sect is removed from the ḥadīth, the
greater and more severe is the disagreement in their midst. For every
affair becomes confused and muddled for the one who rejects the
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 145

truth; it becomes ambiguous for him so he does not know where to

turn, as the Most Majestic One said, But they deny the Truth when it
comes to them, so they are in a confused state. [Q., Qāf, 50:5].

ʿUmar Commanded Shurayh. to Accord Precedence

to the Qurʾan and Then the Sunnah
52. As for your statement, “ʿUmar wrote to Shurayḥ that he was to judge
with the Book of God, and, if something was not to be found in it, then
with what was in the Sunnah of His Messenger. If it is not found in that,
then he was to judge according to what the righteous people decided.”
This is the clearest proof against you regarding the nullity of imitation.
For ʿUmar commanded that Shurayḥ accord precedence to the Book of
God over whatever else was besides it, and if he were not to find an
answer in the Book and were to find it in the Sunnah, then he should not
turn to anything other than that. And if he were not to find it in the
Sunnah, then he should decide in the same manner as the Companions.

In the name of God, we ask the imitators if they do this, or anything re-
sembling it. When a new situation presents itself before them, are any of
them moved to try and discover a ruling thereupon from the Book of God
and then to enforce it? If they do not find such a ruling in the Book of God,
do they search for it in the Sunnah? If they do not find it in the Sunnah do
they base their verdicts on those of the Companions? God and His angels
bear witness over them, as they do over themselves, that they take their
verdicts on such matters from the opinions of the ones they imitate. Even
if a contrary opinion from the Book, the Sunnah, or the Companions is
clear before them, they do not turn toward it, nor do they take anything
from these sources except what agrees with the opinion of the one they
imitate. The letter of ʿUmar, therefore, nullifies their statement and tears
it down more than anything else. It demonstrates the perfect approach
and the august guidance of the predecessors.

The Way of Later Generations in Deriving

Legal Rulings
When it came to the later generations, their practice was contrary to this,
and they said, “If a new problem is presented before a muftī or a ruler, he
must first see whether there is any disagreement in this area or not. If
146 on taqlīd

there is no disagreement, he does not need to look into the Book or the
Sunnah. Rather, he issues a verdict and judgment based on consensus.*
But if there is disagreement in it, then he exercises independent reasoning
to find the view closest to the available evidence, and he issues a verdict
and a ruling based on it.” This is contrary to what is proved by the ḥadīth
of Muʿādh, the letter of ʿUmar, and the statements of the Companions.
[The truth is that] what is proved by the Qurʾan, the Sunnah, and the
Companions is preferable, as it is within our capacity, and it is what we
have been commanded to follow. It is easier for the mujtahids to know
what the Qurʾan and Sunnah indicate than to know those rulings over
which people in the far corners of the earth have reached agreement. The
latter, if not absolutely impossible, is certainly the hardest and most bur-
densome of obligations (even though there are a few [major areas of agree-
ment] that must be known of as a matter of religious necessity). How can
God and His Messenger direct us to do something that is not within our
reach? How can they direct us to abandon referring to His Book and the
Sunnah of His Messenger, both of which He guided us to and made easy
for us, so that we could reach and grasp the knowledge contained therein?
Further, people could well have disagreed without the scholar knowing
this. The absence of knowledge about dispute does not indicate its [the
dispute’s] actual absence. So, how can he prefer this absence of knowledge
about the occurrence of disagreement to the knowledge [attained through
the Qurʾan and the Sunnah]? How, then, can it be permissible for him to
abandon the truth which is known, and opt for [ruling on the basis of the
supposed agreement of previous scholars], an affair about which he does
not know, and about which the most that can be said is that it is likely. In
the best case, there will still be as much doubt about the occurrence of this
agreement as there is about those matters of which he does have knowl-
edge. Or [there might even be] more.
On this basis, how can it be correct for one to say, “It is a necessary condi-
tion of consensus that the age of the people living during it should have
ended? So long as their age has not passed, everyone is free to disagree with
them.” So it is not possible for the one who adopts this path to rely on consen-
sus as a proof, until he knows that that age has passed, and there was no op-
position in it to the views of the scholars of the time. In seeking guidance, has
God directed the community to the Qurʾan and the Sunnah of His Messenger,

*
A verdict is a fatwa issued by a muftī. It is a non-binding legal opinion by a scholar, while a
judgment is a legally binding order issued by a qāḍī.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 147

or has He directed them to gain knowledge of consensus that is impossible

for them to attain and about which the people of the community can never
know? Has He abandoned directing them to rely on the proof in their midst
[the Qurʾan], which remains till the end of time and by which it is possible for
them to gain guidance and to discern truth? This is truly impossible.
When this trend started, the practice of abandonment of texts by rely-
ing on supposed consensus came into being. Then, claims in support of
this began to surface. Now, when someone among the imitators who does
not know of the disagreement [in a particular area of law] is argued against
on the basis of the Qurʾan and the Sunnah, he says, “This is against con-
sensus.” This is precisely what was rejected by the Imāms of Islam. They
denounced the one who did this, and said, “Anyone making such a claim
[of the existence of consensus] is a liar.”
Imām Aḥmad, may God be pleased with him, said, in the narration of
his son, ʿAbdallāh, “Whoever [559] claims consensus has lied. It might
well be that people actually did disagree. This [mistaken claim about the
existence of consensus] is the claim of Bishr al-Marīrsī* and al-Aṣamm†.
Rather, let [a person] say, ‘We do not know of people disagreeing over this,’
or, ‘It has not reached us [that they did so].’”
He also said, in the narration of Marwazī‡, “How can it be permissible
for a person to say, ‘The scholars agreed’? When you hear them saying
this, denounce them [as liars]. Had they said, ‘I do not know of any dis-
agreement,’ that would have been acceptable.”
He also said, in the narration of Abī Ṭālib§, “This [claim of consensus]
is a lie. How can he have knowledge of the fact that all of mankind agreed
on this? Rather he should say, ‘I do not know of any disagreement herein.’
This is better than saying that there is consensus among people.”
He also said, in the narration of Abī al-Ḥārith**, “No one may claim
consensus. It might be that people did indeed disagree.”

*
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bishr b. Ghiyāth b. Abī Karīmah al-Marīsī, one of the leading scholars
of the Muʿtazilīs, who gained notoriety among the traditionalists for his espousal of heretical
positions. He is reported to have debated al-Shāfiʿī.
†
Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Kaysān al-Asamm (d. c. 225/840), a linguist and exegete, who
was denounced for his association with various heretical sects.
‡
Muḥammad b. Naṣr b. al-Ḥajjāj al-Marwazī (d. 294/906), a leading jurist and traditionist.
§
Abū Ṭālib Aḥmad b. Ḥamīd al-Mishkānī (d. 244/858), a student of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.
**
Abū al-Ḥārith Surayj b. Yūnus b. Ibrāhīm (d. 235/849), a contemporary of Aḥmad
b. Ḥanbal.
148 on taqlīd

The Scholars of Islam Accord Precedence

to the Book and the Sunnah
The scholars of Islam never ceased to accord precedence to the Book
over the Sunnah and to the Sunnah over consensus, placing consensus
in the third category [of sources from which law is derived]. Al-Shāfiʿī,
may God be pleased with him, said, “Proof lies in the Book of God, the
Sunnah [560] of His Messenger and the agreement of the scholars.” In
writing on his differences with Mālik, he said, “Knowledge is of differ-
ent categories. In the first category is the Book and the confirmed
Sunnah; then, consensus about that which is not found in the Book or
the Sunnah; third, the statement of a Companion to which no other
Companion is known to have objected; fourth, disagreement among the
Companions; fifth, analogy.” So he accorded precedence to examining
the Qurʾan and Sunnah over consensus. Consensus is only to be re-
sorted to when what the Qurʾan and Sunnah have to say on a matter is
unknown. This indeed is the truth.

The Way of the Knowledgeable Ones

and the Scholars
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī* said, “Knowledge, for us, is what comes from God in
the form of a Book that speaks and abrogates but is not itself abrogated
[i.e., the Qurʾan], and those authentic reports about the Prophet about
which there is no dispute. And whatever comes from the greatest of the
Companions about that which they agreed on. If they disagreed, one may
not venture outside the bounds of their disagreement. If this too is not
clear and cannot be understood, then what comes from the Successors is
adopted. If it is not found with the Successors, then with the righteous
scholars from among those who followed here,” such as Ayyūb al-
Sakhtiyānī,† Ḥammād b. Zayd,‡ Ḥammād b. Salamah,§ Sufyān, Mālik,

*
Abū Ḥātim Muḥammad b. Idrīs b. al-Mundhir al-Ḥanẓalī al-Rāzī (d. 77/697), a leading
traditionist.
†
Abū Bakr Ayyūb b. Abī Tamīmah Kaysān al-Sakhtiyānī (d. 131/748), a renowned traditionist.
‡
Abū Ismāʿīl Ḥammād b. Zayd b. Dirham (d. 179/795), a Basran ḥadīth scholar.
§
Abū Salamah Ḥammād b. Salamah b. Dīnār, a renowned Basran traditionist.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 149

Awzāʿī,* and Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ.† If [the answer is] not to be found with their
likes, then [it may be sought] among the likes of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
Mahdī,‡ ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak,§ ʿAbdallāh b. Idrīs**, Yaḥyā b. Ādam,††
Ibn ʿUyaynah, Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ, and those after them, Muḥammad b.
Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, Yazīd b. Harūn,‡‡ al-Ḥumaydī,§§ Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq
b. Ibrahīm al-Ḥanẓalī,*** and Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām.†††
This is the way of the people of knowledge and the scholars of the religion.
They regarded following the statements of the Companions (instead of the
Qurʾan and the Sunnah) to be like purification with earth: it is only resorted
to in the absence of water. These later imitators turned toward purification
with earth, even while they had access to water, which was easier to use.

The Way of the Later Imitators

After this came a group who were the enemies of knowledge and of its
folk, who said, “If a matter comes before [561] a person who issues reli-
gious verdicts, whether he be a muftī or a judge, it is not permissible for
him to look for an answer to it in the Book or the Sunnah of His Messen-
ger nor to the statements of the Companions. Rather, he must only look to
the statement of the one he imitates, his principal and the one whom he
has made an authority over the Qurʾan and the Sunnah.”
So he is to render judgments and verdicts according to whatever part [of
the Qurʾan, the Sunnah, and the statements of the Companions] corresponds

*
Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAmr al-Awzāʿī (d. 157/774), renowned jurist and founder of
the school of law named after him.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ b. Ṣāliḥ b. Muslim b. Ḥayy al-Hamadānī (d. 169/785), an
early Kufan traditionist.
‡
Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī (d. 198/813), a Basran traditionist.
§
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak al-Ḥanẓalī (d. 181/797).
**
ʿAbdallāh b. Idrīs al-Kūfī (d. 192/807), an early scholar and companion of Mālik.
††
Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā b. Ādam b. Sulaymān al-Amawī (or al-Umawī), a renowned Kufan
scholar. Some authorities report that he died in 203/818, while others report a much later
date.
‡‡
Abū Khālid Yazīd b. Hārūn (d. 206/821), an early scholar and Qurʾan commentator.
§§
Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh b. al-Zubayr al-Ḥumaydī (d. 219/834), an important traditionist.
***
i.e. Ibn Rāḥawayh, whose details have been provided above.
†††
Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim b. Sallām al-Khurāsānī (d. 224/838, in Mecca), a leading tradition-
ist scholar.
150 on taqlīd

to the views of the one he imitates. It is impermissible for him, [in their
view,] to issue a verdict or judgment according to that part thereof that op-
poses the views of the one he imitates. If he does so, he is subject to dis-
missal from his post of delivering verdicts and judgments.
A verdict is then sought against him [by the imitators, in the following
form]: “What do the noble scholars say about the one who is associated
with a specific school which he imitates to the exclusion of all others, who
then renders a verdict or a judgment opposing his school? Is it permissi-
ble for him to do this or not? Does this not establish his villainy?” The
[scholars of the] imitators then lower their heads and say, “It is not permis-
sible for him to do this, and it does establish his villainy.” This they would
do, even if the opinion the scholar inclined to was the opinion of Abū
Bakr, ʿUmar, Ibn Masʿūd, ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb, Muʿādh b. Jabal, or their likes.
The response of the one who has appointed himself to issue verdicts on
behalf of God and His Messenger is that it is not permissible for him to
oppose the statement of his principal for the statements of one who is
more knowledgeable than him about God and His Messenger. This holds
even though the Qurʾan and Sunnah are in support of the statement of the
other scholar. This is one of the gravest crimes against the religion com-
mitted by the imitators.
If only they had confined themselves to their limit and rank and con-
veyed abstract theoretical knowledge about whatever they found to be sus-
pect in the statement of their principals. If only they had acknowledged
that they did not have any knowledge about whether these statements of
their principals were right or wrong, they might have had an argument to
present before God to justify their actions. But this is the limit of their
knowledge. Such is their animosity toward the people of knowledge and
those who uphold proofs based on knowledge. Success is with God.

Did the Companions Imitate ʿUmar?

53. As for your statement, “ʿUmar forbade the sale of slave women who
had borne children to their masters, and the Companions followed
him in that, and he enforced the triple divorce as an irrevocable di-
vorce, and they followed him in that as well,” there are several answers.

First, they did not follow him in imitation of him. Rather, their indepen-
dent reasoning in these matters led them to the same conclusions as his
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 151

reasoning had led him to. Not a single one of them said, “I act thus be-
cause I imitate ʿUmar.”
Second, not all of them followed him. Thus, Ibn Masʿūd opposed
him regarding the sale of slave women who had borne children to their
masters. Ibn ʿAbbās opposed him in the enforcement of the triple di-
vorce [as an irrevocable one].127 [562] So when the Companions and
others disagreed, the ruler’s [i.e., ʿUmar’s] was the proof [which had to
prevail].
Third, even if ʿUmar was followed, and even if it is supposed that he
was imitated by the Companions, there is still no proof for the permis-
sibility of imitating someone quite beneath him in everything that
other person says, nor for abandoning the opinions of those who are
more knowledgeable than him. To infer to the contrary is among the
most pernicious of inferences, [a position so weak it is akin to] dan-
gling from a spider’s nest. You should imitate ʿUmar and abandon
imitation of everyone else, although you are content that ʿUmar should
not be imitated while Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and Mālik should be
imitated. You cannot argue on the basis of something you yourselves
go against. How is it possible for a man to rely on an argument that he
himself does not accept?

An Explanation of ʿUmar’s Statement: “Had I Done

So, It Would Have Become a Practice”
54. As for your statement, “ʿAmr b. al ʿĀṣ said to ʿUmar, when he had
a wet dream, ‘Wear another garment.’ But ʿUmar declined, saying,
‘If I were to do so, it would become a Sunnah.’” So where is the
proof in this that ʿUmar allowed imitation of himself and that he
allowed turning away from the Qurʾan and the Sunnah of the Mes-
senger? The extent of his dislike of this is that he did not wear
another garment, lest he be followed by those who saw him. He did
this to ensure that they would not follow him and in order that
they would not be able to say, “If this was not the Sunnah of the
Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
ʿUmar would not have done it.” So this is what ʿUmar feared, for
people tend to follow their scholars, whether the scholars like it or
not. This, then, is the reality, even though it is necessary to explain
this issue further.
152 on taqlīd

Acting upon That Which Is Clear and Leaving the

Ambiguous to the One Who Has Knowledge of It
55. As for your statement, “ʿUbayy said, ‘Whatever seems doubtful to
you, refer it to the one who knows more about it.’” [563] This is the
truth. This is what is obligatory on everyone, other than the Messen-
ger. For there is no doubt that all those after him will be confused
about some matter that appears before them. Everyone in this posi-
tion must refer this matter to the one who has more knowledge. If it
then becomes clear to them, they become knowledgeable like him. If
not, then, having referred it to the one who possessed greater erudi-
tion, they incur no liability for that which they do not know. This is
what is obligatory on us in relation to the Book of our Lord, the
Sunnah of His Messenger, and the statements of his Companions.
God, the Exalted, has created over every knowledgeable one another
who is yet more so. So, whoever finds some of the truth eluding him
and refers it to the one who has more knowledge than him has done
what is proper. Does this constitute turning away from the Qurʾan,
the Sunnah, and the reports of the Companions and choosing a spe-
cific individual to be an arbiter over all this? [How could this set a
precedent allowing] abandonment of the texts because of their con-
tradiction to his views, weighing the Qurʾan and the Sunnah against
them, accepting everything he delivers as a verdict and rejecting that
which opposes it?

This report [of ʿUbayy] is the most convincing proof of the illegitimacy of
imitation. The first part of it says, “Whatever is clear to you, act on it; and
whatever is not clear, refer it to the one who knows about it.” So we ask
you, by God, if the Sunnah is clear to you, will you abandon the statement
of the one you imitate in favor of it? Will you act on it and issue verdicts
and judgments based on it or will you leave it and abandon it in favor of
his opinion, with the excuse that he is more knowledgeable about it than
we are? For that is the legacy of ʿUbayy, along with all the other Compan-
ions. They were firm on this legacy, which nullifies imitation absolutely.
God grants success.
Then we say, “Did you refer those matters about which you were con-
fused, to the ones who had knowledge about them from among the Com-
panions of the Messenger of God, as they were the most knowledgeable
of the community and the most exalted in rank? Or did you leave their
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 153

opinions and turn away from them? Even if the ones whom you imitate
are among those who are to be referred to in these matters, the Compan-
ions are more deserving of this than others.”

The Verdicts of the Companions, While the Prophet

Was Alive, Were Narrations from Him
56. As for your statement, “The Companions used to issue verdicts while
the Prophet was alive in their midst, so the people who sought verdicts
from them were imitating them.” The answer to this is that their ver-
dicts consisted of relating rulings from God and His Messenger. So
they were only acting as transmitters of the Sunnah. Their verdicts
were not in imitation of others and were not followed, even if they were
opposed by the texts of the Qurʾan and the Sunnah. So they did not
imitate in issuing verdicts nor did they do so without basing the latter
on the texts. The ones seeking verdicts only relied on the ones being
asked to deliver them for what the latter reported concerning their
Prophet. [564] Therefore, the ones being asked would say, “He acted
thus,” or “He forbade this.” Such were their verdicts, a proof for the
ones seeking them, just as they were a proof for the Companions them-
selves. There was no difference between the Companions and the ones
seeking verdicts, except in relation to the proximity between them and
the Messenger, or the absence thereof. God, His Messenger, and all the
people of knowledge know that the Companions and the ones who
sought verdicts from them did not act, except on the basis of what they
knew from their Messenger and what they had observed from him, or
heard from him, some through an intermediary and some without.

There was no one among them who would adopt the opinions of one in-
dividual among the community and deem permissible whatever this indi-
vidual had said was so and deem forbidden whatever this individual had
declared so. Nor would they allow whatever this individual had allowed.
The Prophet had admonished those among them who issued verdicts
based on something other than the Sunnah. Just as he admonished* Abī
al-Sanābil128 and the one who issued a verdict that the virgin adulterer

*
Abū l-Sanābil b. Baʿkak b. al-Ḥajjāj b. al-Ḥārith b. Quṣayy al-Qurashī, a poet and a Compan-
ion of the Prophet.
154 on taqlīd

should be stoned to death,129 and the one who issued a verdict that a
wounded area must be washed, even though it led to the death of the man
who washed his wound. He also admonished the one who delivered a
verdict without knowledge and the one who issues verdicts whose authen-
ticity he does not know about. The Prophet said that the sin in such cases
was on the one who dispensed the verdict. Therefore, the verdicts of the
Companions in the life of the Prophet were of two kinds: first, some of the
verdicts of the Companions would reach the Prophet, and he would ap-
prove of them. These would become proofs by virtue of the Prophet’s ap-
proval, not merely by the acts of the Companions who issued them. The
second kind were the verdicts they issued in which they were only relating
the affairs of their Prophet. So in this, they were narrators, neither imitat-
ing nor being imitated.

The Real Meaning of God Obligating Some People

to Accept Warnings from a Party that Gains
Understanding in the Religion
57. As for your statement, “The Words of God, the Most High, Nor should
the Believers all go forth together, [565] if a party from every expedition re-
mained behind, they could devote themselves to gain understanding in reli-
gion, and warn the people when they return to them [Q., al-Tawbah, 9:122]—
it is obligatory to accept their warnings and this is imitation of them.”

There are several answers to this. First, God, the Most High, commands
them to accept the warnings received from the revelation sent to the
Prophet during the absence of the people in jihād. So where is the proof in
this for the people of imitation in preferring the opinions of men over
revelation?
Second, the verse is a clear proof against them. For the Most Perfect
One divided their obedience to Him and their upholding of His Command
into two categories. The first is going out for jihād, and the second, learn-
ing the religion. He linked the establishment of the religion with these two
groups: the rulers and the scholars. So those who do battle fight on behalf
of those who remain behind, whereas those who stay behind safeguard
religious knowledge for those who have gone out to fight. When they
return from their expedition, they are made aware of all the knowledge
that escaped them, by someone who heard the same from the Messenger
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 155

of God, may the peace and blessings of God be on him. People hold one of
these two views regarding this verse.
According to the first of these, the meaning is, “Why does not a party
from each group go forth to gain understanding into the religion and to
warn those [gathered to fight at] the base camp?,” so the meaning would
be [going forth] for the acquisition of religious knowledge. This is the
opinion of al-Shāfiʿī and a group among the commentators. They relied on
this to prove the acceptability of a narration reported by one person, be-
cause it is not necessary that a “party” consist of the number of people
required to reach the level of continuously recurrent testimony [tawātur].
According to the second view, the meaning of the verse is, “Why does
not a party go forth to fight to allow those left behind to gain religious
knowledge and to warn the party gone forth when they return to them and
to inform them of the revelation that was sent down after they had left?”
This, the opinion of the majority, is the correct one. This is because “party”
[the word nafīr in the verse] is to go out for jihād, as said by the Prophet,
“When you are called for jihād, then go forth.”130 Also, the term “Believers”
could be common to those who stayed with the Prophet and those who
were away. However, it is, without a doubt, those who stayed with him who
are intended, they being the best of the Believers. So how can the word
“Believers” not include them? According to the first group of interpreters,
the term “Believers” applies only to those who are absent. So the meaning
according to them is, “It is not for the Believers to go out altogether to the
Prophet. Why does not a party of each go to him?” This is against the clear
meaning of the word “Believers.” It is also a departure from the way the
root n-f-r is used in the Qurʾan and Sunnah. Either way, there is nothing in
the verse that would require acceptance of the condemned category of
imitation as valid. Rather, it is a proof of its corruption and nullity. [566]
This is because warning is only achieved with proof. So the one on
whom the proof is not established has not been warned. Likewise, the one
who actually warns is the one who has established the evidence. Whoever
does not present a proof is not a warner. If you name this kind of activity
“imitation,” then know that the real problem here is not with nomencla-
ture. We do not deny the validity of this kind of imitation so you can name
it whatever you like. What we denounce is appointing one specific indi-
vidual and considering his opinions the arbiter of the Qurʾan and Sunnah,
so that whatever in them agrees with his views is accepted and whatever
does not is rejected. You do all this while you accept the opinions of this
individual without proof. You also reject the views of his peers or the one
156 on taqlīd

more knowledgeable than him, even while the proofs favor him. This is
what we reject. Moreover, every scholar on the face of the earth declares
his rejection and condemnation of this and of those who do it.

Zubayr Adopted the View of Abū Bakr Regarding

the Inheritance of the Grandfather
58. As for your statement that Zubayr was asked about the inheritance of
the grandfather when he exists alongside the brothers of the deceased,
and he said, “As for the one about whom the Messenger of God said, ‘If
I were to take a friend among the people of the earth, I would take him
as one’ (and by that he meant Abū Bakr), ‘then he regarded the grand-
father as being like the father.’” So is there anything in this that proves
the validity of imitation in any way? The clear, irrefutable proofs which
indicate that the opinion of the truthful one [i.e., Abū Bakr] about the
inheritance of the grandfather is the most correct out of all the opinions
on this matter, have already been mentioned. Ibn al-Zubayr did not put
forth this view of his in imitation. Rather, he attributed this view to Abū
Bakr to illustrate the majesty of the one who held this view and to clar-
ify that he is the one to whom no other can be compared. Ibn al-Zubayr
did not mention Abū Bakr in order that his opinion would be adopted
without a proof, nor so that proofs from the Qurʾan and Sunnah would
be abandoned in favor of his view. Ibn al-Zubayr and the other Com-
panions were among the most God-fearing of people. God’s established
Proof and His clear Statements were too dear to them to even counte-
nance abandoning them for the opinions of mere men or the opinions
of one man, whoever he may be. The statement of Ibn al-Zubayr, “The
truthful one—i.e., Abū Bakr—regarded the grandfather as being like
the father,” therefore includes the ruling and the proof together.

Accepting the Testimony of a Witness Does Not

Imply That He Is Imitated
59. As for your statement, “God has commanded that we accept the testi-
mony of the witness and this is imitation of him.” This proof for the
validity of imitation, had it existed without any other, would have been
sufficient to establish its abhorrence. Do we base our acceptance of the
testimony of a witness on anything other than a clear textual proof
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 157

from the Book of our Lord, the Sunnah of our Messenger and the
consensus of the community, that his statement is to be accepted? It
is God, the Most Glorious, who made the testimony of a witness an
acceptable proof by which a judge can decide cases, just as he does so
on the basis of confessions, which have also been made an acceptable
means of proof in sacred law.

Now, the statement of the one who confesses to a crime is, likewise, a proof
in the sacred law. Acceptance of that can also be referred to as imitation of
him. So, just as you claim that accepting the testimony of a witness is imita-
tion of him, you may call this acceptance of a confession whatever you
desire. The fact is that God, the Exalted, has commanded us to judge on the
basis of these confessions and testimonies. He validated these as proofs by
which legal rulings are established [567]. Therefore, the one who judges on
the basis of testimony and confession is enforcing the command of God
and of His Messenger. If we were not to imitate the witness, no legal rul-
ings could ever be enforced. The Prophet himself delivered judgments on
the basis of witnesses and confessions,131 but all this constitutes ruling ac-
cording to the actual command that God had revealed. It does not fall
under [the rubric of ] ruling in accordance with imitation. It is a burial of
the truth and a complete surrender of the intellect to argue on the basis of
all this to prove the validity of the type of imitation which involves turning
away from the Book, the Sunnah, and the views of the Companions, and to
prefer the opinions of other people over all of these. To accord a less knowl-
edgeable man precedence over a more knowledgeable one and to discard
altogether the opinions of everyone who opposes him is the same thing.
In sum, when we accept the statement of a witness to an act, we do not
accept it just because of the fact that he was a witness. Rather, we do so be-
cause God, the Most High, commanded us to accept his testimony. As for you,
people of imitation, when you accept the statement of the one you imitate, do
you accept it just because of the fact that he said it or is it because God com-
manded you to accept his statements and reject everything other than that?

Accepting the Veracity of Someone Who Traces

Ancestry Is Not Imitation
60. As for your statement, “The sacred law mandates accepting the state-
ment of the one who traces ancestry and of those who estimate quanti-
ties of saleable goods, one who is called on to apportion commodities,
158 on taqlīd

the expert who appraises the cluster of ripening fruit, and the two
judges who decide what qualifies as an equivalent atonement to be
offered for hunting while in a state of ritual sanctity. And all this is
manifest imitation.” Do you mean by this that this is imitation of some
scholars in accepting their views or in that which they relate? If you
espouse the former position, this is erroneous. If you mean the latter,
then there is no comfort to be had from this argument for the imita-
tion whose falsity has been established through the evidence. Accept-
ing the statements of these people falls in the category of accepting the
narration of a reporter and witness. It is not from the category of ac-
cepting verdicts in the religion without establishing evidence for their
veracity. Rather, this is allowed only because of a reasonable belief
about the truthfulness of the one who makes this statement, while al-
lowing for the possibility that he may have erred [568]. So how is the
acceptance of news, testimony, and confessions comparable to imita-
tion in issuing verdicts? The one who relates anything about these
affairs informs others about matters that become perceptible to the
senses by way of knowledge. He himself came to know of all this with
his manifest senses and faculties of discernment. God, the Exalted,
commanded that the statement of the one who informs us about all
this is to be accepted if it is apparently true and honest. Accepting the
statement of a person who conveys a report from the Messenger of
God, about his actions or speech, may the peace and blessings of God
be on him, is similar to this, as is accepting such a statement from the
one who narrates it from the one who narrates it from the Prophet and
so forth. This is the truth. Nobody disagrees on it.

Regarding the imitation of someone else’s views in their entirety, all that
we know thereof is that these are his opinions and deductions. Therefore,
imitating him here is no different from imitating him when he relates
what he saw, heard or knew. How does this obligate or even permit us to
issue verdicts based on his opinion, to judge with it, to deem this our
means of submission to God, and to say, “This is the truth and whatever
opposes it is erroneous?” And to add, “We shall reject the texts of the
Qurʾan, the Sunnah, the narrations of the Companions, and the opinions
of all the people of knowledge who opposed him!”
Also included in this category is the imitation by the blind man of
someone who indicates the direction of Mecca so he can pray facing it, as
well as [imitating him regarding] the arrival of the time of prayer. Ibn Umm
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 159

Maktūm would not make the call to prayer until he imitated someone who
told him of the arrival of daybreak. It would be said to him repeatedly,
“Daybreak has come.” Similar to this is the imitation of the muezzin by
the people regarding the commencement of the appointed time of prayer.
Similar, too, is imitation by the one in an underground cove of the one
who informs him of the times of prayers and the breaking and starting
time of the fast and so forth. Also in this category lies the imitation related
to [all the examples presented by the imitators, such as] the acceptance of
translation, the authenticity of letters and introductions, and the pointing
out of someone’s flaws or merits. All of this is from the category of those
reports in which God has commanded that the one transmitting the report
be accepted if he is upright and truthful. People have unanimously agreed
to accept a person’s statement about the giving of a gift and the entry of
one spouse unto the other [i.e., the occurrence of sexual intercourse in
marriage]. Similarly, they agree over accepting the testimony of a woman
(whether she is Muslim or a non-Muslim protected woman [dhimmī]),
about the timing of the ending of her menstrual bleeding and the [resul-
tant] permissibility of having intercourse with her or marrying her off in
reliance on these statements.
None of this proves the validity of imitation in the issuance of verdicts
or judgments. If this is imitation of her statement, then God has legislated
for us that we accept this and imitate her in it. He would not have legis-
lated for us that we take religious orders from Him through someone
other than His Messenger, let alone that we abandon the Sunnah for the
opinion of one man among the people of knowledge and prefer his views
over those of all other scholars.

Buying of Food Without Inquiry Regarding

Its Lawfulness
61. As for your statement, “There is a consensus on the permissibility of
purchasing different types of meat, [569] edibles, garments, and their
likes without enquiring as to their permissibility and thus imitating
their owners.” The answer to all such arguments is that this is not
imitation regarding a command of God and His Messenger without
evidence. Rather, it is being satisfied with the declaration of the slaugh-
terer or the seller. This is following and being guided by the command
of God and His Messenger. Even if the slaughterers and sellers are
Jews, Christians, or evil-doers, we would rely on their declarations in
160 on taqlīd

these matters. We do not ask about the exact means by which these
items were rendered permissible. As ʿĀʾishah said, “O Messenger of
God, people come to us with varieties of meat, and we do not know
whether the name of God has been recited on them or not,” so he said,
“You can pronounce the name of God over them and consume
them.”132 So would imitation of the unbelievers and evil-doers in all
matters of religion also be permissible for you as you claim to imitate
them in matters dealing with slaughtering and foodstuffs?

Leave aside these lifeless arguments, and enter with us in a spirit of accep-
tance of proofs that distinguish between righteousness and falsehood. We
shall enter a binding pact with you, that we accept the overarching authority
of the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger and that we shall
make them the judge and abandon the opinions of mere men in favor of
them. We shall follow the truth wherever it is and shall agree not to be biased
in favor of anyone [as an authority], other than the Messenger whose every
statement we accept, rejecting every opinion which goes against his. If not,
then you may testify that we are the first to denounce this approach of imita-
tion and we turn away from it, and call to its opposite. God is the Helper.

- ?
Are All People Obliged to Perform Ijtihad
62. As for your statement, “If all people had been obligated to perform
ijtihād and to be scholars, the well-being of humanity would have
come to an end, commerce and trade would have to be suspended.
Such a thing is impossible in the religion and in divine decree.”

There are several answers to this. It is among the mercies and kindnesses
of God, the Most Perfect, upon us that He has not obligated us with per-
forming imitation. If He had done so, our affair of existence would have
come to an end, and our welfare would have been undermined. This is
because we would not know who among the muftīs and religious scholars
should be imitated. Their number is thought to be over two hundred—and
actually, no one knows their real number, except God—for Muslims have
populated the earth in the East, West, North, and South and Islam, by the
Grace of God, spread as far as the distance of the night. If we were obligated
with imitation, we would have become involved in things that were most
futile and discordant. [And if we were obligated with imitation of every
scholar], we would have been compelled to hold a thing both permissible
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 161

and forbidden, and obligatory and prohibited, all at the same time [because
of their differences]. If we were obligated with imitation of the most knowl-
edgeable scholars, [570] it would remain far easier to gain knowledge of the
rulings of the Qurʾan and Sunnah than to gain knowledge of the identity of
this scholar in whom all the qualifications for being imitated are met.
Knowledge of this is, in fact, difficult to gain, even for the learned scholar,
let alone the imitator who is like a blind person. If we were only obligated
with imitation of some scholars and were left to choose this depending on
our wishes and choices, the religion of God would have to follow our wills,
choices, and desires. This is absolutely unthinkable. There is no doubt that
all these differences are to be referred to the one whose obedience God
Himself commanded and from whom we were commanded to acquire the
religion. And that is Muḥammad, the son of ʿAbdallāh, the son of ʿAbd al-
Muṭṭalib, the Messenger of God, the one who fulfilled the trust of revelation
and the one whom He chose as a proof over all of creation. God did not
create such a rank for anyone other than him.
Second, reasoning and refined deduction lead to the betterment of af-
fairs, not to their corruption, while neglecting these and imitating some-
one who is sometimes right and sometimes wrong leads to the ruin and
corruption of man’s interests, as has been witnessed.
Third, we are all commanded to affirm the truthfulness of whatsoever
is related from the Messenger and to obey his commands. But this cannot
happen, except after knowing his commands and narrations. God did not
obligate anything on the community, except that which would save its re-
ligion and its worldly affairs, thereby improving its present life along with
the life to come. In neglecting this obligation of being guided by Him lies
the abandonment of the community’s welfare and the corruption of its
affairs. The world is not rendered worse, except by ignorance, and is not
built, except upon knowledge. When knowledge is prevalent in a city or a
community, its residents are less prone to evil. Whenever it is absent, evil
and corruption creep in. Whoever does not realize this is one of those
whom God has not granted true insight. Imām Aḥmad said, “If it were not
for knowledge, people would be like beasts.” He also said, “People are in
greater need of knowledge than of food and drink. For these are only
needed twice or thrice a day, whereas knowledge is needed at all times.”
Fourth, what is obligatory on man is to know the legal rulings that
specifically concern him. There is no obligation on him to know that
which is not needed. Acquiring this knowledge does not involve abandon-
ing his welfare nor the suspension of his worldly life. The Companions
162 on taqlīd

were engaged in their daily lives, seeking sustenance through agriculture,

livestock, and travelling around the earth for purposes of trade and con-
cluding contracts in markets. Despite this they were the most knowledge-
able of scholars, who cannot be equaled. [571]
Fifth, the useful knowledge that the Messenger came with was free of
legal hypothetical what-ifs, guesswork, fictitious legal conundrums, puz-
zles, and riddles. And this religion, by the Grace of God, is the easiest
thing for one to acquire, commit to memory, and comprehend. [This reli-
gion is] the Book of God which He has made easy to understand, as He
says, And We have indeed made the Qurʾan easy to understand and remember,
then is there anyone who will receive admonition? [Q., al-Qamar, 54:17].
Al-Bukhārī said, in his Ṣaḥīḥ, that Maṭr al-Warrāq* said, “Is there
anyone who seeks knowledge? Anyone who does will be helped.” He did
not say about such a person that “his interests will be ruined and his
worldly life suspended.” The Sunnah of the Messenger is, by the Grace
of God, firm and safe. The principles underlying religious rulings are
based on nearly five hundred aḥādīth, while its underlying foundation
and details are based on around four thousand aḥādīth. What is ex-
tremely hard and difficult are the mental hypothetical what-ifs, the legal
sophisms, captious questions, issues, sub-issues, and principles for
which God did not reveal any authority or sanction. The success of the
imitators’ method is measured by excess, increase, and multiplication
[in such hypotheticals]. As for the religion, its success is measured by its
profound simplicity. God is the Helper.

The Number of Reports on Which the Principles

and Details of Rulings Are Based
63. As for your statement, “People have agreed on the validity of the
groom imitating [i.e., being led by] the one who guides him to his
bride on the night of their wedding; of the blind man, regarding the
direction of Mecca for the prayer and its time; of the muezzins [for
learning of the times of prayer]; of the prayer leaders, in matters of
ritual purity and the recitation of the Opening Chapter†; and imitation

*
Abū Rajāʾ Maṭr b. Ṭahmān al-Warrāq al-Khurāsānī (d. 229/843), a Successor.
†
According to some schools of law, an imām’s recitation of the Opening Chapter of the
Qur’ān in ritual prayer suffices for those praying behind him.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 163

of the wife regarding the end of her period and intercourse and mar-
riage with her.”

The answer to this has preceded. Your inference in this is incorrect. This
is not the imitation [572] that was condemned by the earliest and later
generations at all. We do not accept the statements of these people be-
cause they inform us of them but because God and His Messenger com-
manded that their statements be accepted and they established them as
proofs on the basis of which legal judgments could be issued. So the infor-
mation [conveyed by these categories of people] carries the same weight as
testimony and confession. How does any of this render it permissible to
imitate in religious commands, turning away from the Qurʾan and the
Sunnah by appointing one specific person to act as an arbiter over the
Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger?

The Case of ʿUqbah b. al-H -

. arith Is Not a Proof
for the Imitators
64. As for your statement, “The Prophet commanded ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith
to imitate the woman who claimed she had breast-fed him and his
wife [by separating from his wife].”

How wondrous, by God—for you yourselves do not imitate her in this

matter! Even if she were one of the Wives of the Prophet [you would not
imitate her in this], nor would you accept and act according to this ḥadīth.
In fact, you reject it in favor of your principal whom you imitate. Is there
anything in this that proves that imitation in the religion of God is permis-
sible? Does this ḥadīth prove anything other than the validity of accepting
the claim of a person about a physical, sensory matter about which she
forwards a claim? Or, is it not like accepting the testimony of a witness?
Was ʿUqbah’s separation from his wife carried out in imitation of this
woman or out of obedience to the Messenger of God when he commanded
that ʿUqbah separate from her? It is the blessing of imitation that you
yourselves do not command that the husband in a similar situation [i.e.,
one who finds that he and his wife were breast-fed by the same woman]
separate from her. Rather, you say to such a man, “She is your wife, with
whom it is lawful for you to have intercourse.” As for us, the evidence
compels us to command the one who is faced with a similar situation as
164 on taqlīd

the Prophet commanded ʿUqbah b. al-Ḥārith. Nor do we abandon the

ḥadīth in imitation of a particular individual.*

Refutation of the View That the Scholars

Allowed Imitation
65. As for your statement, “The scholars have clearly stated the permissibil-
ity of imitation.” For Sufyān said, “When you see a man performing an
action that is wrong, according to you, do not stop him.” And Muḥammad
b. Ḥasan said, “It is permissible for a scholar to imitate one who is more
knowledgeable than he is, not one who is of the same rank as him.” Al-
Shāfiʿī also said on more than one occasion, “I have said this imitating
ʿUmar,” or, “I have said this in imitation of ʿUthmān,” or, “I have said
this in imitation of ʿAtāʾ,” there are several answers to this.

First, if you are claiming that all the scholars issued clear statements re-
garding the permissibility of imitation [573], this is a false claim. We have
mentioned a sufficient number of statements from the Companions, the
Successors, and the scholars of Islam relating to their prohibition of imita-
tion and their condemnation of it and of those who advocate it.

How Did the Scholars Regard the Imitator?

They would call the imitator a freeloader, one who follows other people in
his religion. As Ibn Masʿūd said, “the freeloader is one who follows others
in his religion.” They used to call such a person a blind man, having no
insight. They also referred to the imitator as the one who followed every
bawler having something to say and who thereby inclines to everyone who
hollers. They said the imitator was the one who was not illuminated by the
light of knowledge nor supported by any firm foundation, as was said by
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib about them. Al-Shāfiʿī labeled the imitator as the one who
collects wood at night, and he prohibited imitation of him and of everyone
else. So may God grant him a goodly reward for his services to Islam. He
counseled sincerity to God, His Messenger, and the Muslims and called to
the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Messenger. He commanded that
these sources be followed instead of his own views. Al-Shāfiʿī also

*
The reference here is to the Ḥanafīs, who do not require such a couple to separate.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 165

commanded that we present his opinions before these sources, accepting

from his opinions whatever conforms to them and rejecting whatever is
opposed by them. We ask the imitators, “By God, have you preserved his
legacy in this matter and obeyed him, or have you revolted, rebelled, and
gone against what he said?” Besides, even if you claim that a particular
scholar did allow imitation, this would only be the scholar’s own view.
Second, those about whom you claim that they allowed imitation of the
ones who were more knowledgeable than them were actually the ones
who ran farthest in dread of imitation. They were among the most ada-
mant followers of proofs and among the strongest critics of those who
were more knowledgeable than themselves. You acknowledge that Abū
Ḥanīfah was more knowledgeable than Muḥammad b. Ḥasan and Abū
Yūsuf, whereas their disagreements with him [i.e., Abū Ḥanīfah] are well
known. It has also been authentically reported from Abū Yūsuf that he
said, “It is not permissible for anyone to say what we have said, unless he
knows our reasons for saying so.”
Third, you relentlessly deny that those whom you imitate among the
scholars were themselves imitating others. Thus do you rise and fall with
the statement of al-Shāfiʿī, “I have said this imitating ʿUmar,” and “I have
said this in imitation of ʿUthmān,” and “I have said this in imitation of
ʿAtāʾ.” However, when it came to deciding whether or not his dicta could
be reconciled with his [fame for carrying out] ijtihād, you became ex-
tremely confused [574]. Thus, you claimed that he did not imitate Zayd in
matters of inheritance law, but that he exercised ijtihād and that his con-
clusions [happened to] match those of Zayd, even in the inheritance case
known as “al-Akdariyyah.”* Thus, you claimed that it was his ijtihād [that
happened to be carried out] in exactly the same way [as that of Zayd]. So
how then can you ascribe being an imitator to him now? But this contra-
diction on your part has only come about as a mercy of imitation. If you
had followed knowledge and evidence wherever they came from, being
guided by the proofs, you would not have been involved in this contradic-
tion and would have given everyone his due merit.
Fourth, this argument of yours is among the strongest proofs against
you. Al-Shāfiʿī clearly said that he imitated ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAtāʾ,
despite the fact that he was among the scholars who exercised ijtihād.

*
A case in which the propositus is survived by her husband, her mother, full sister, and
paternal grandfather.
166 on taqlīd

Whereas you, despite your acknowledgement that you are mere imitators,
do not allow imitation of a single one among the Companions. Rather, if
al-Shāfiʿī has said one thing and ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and Ibn Masʿūd—let
alone Saʿīd b. al Muṣayyib, ʿAtāʾ, and al-Ḥasan*—have said another, you
leave imitation of all of them and imitate al-Shāfiʿī. This is manifest con-
tradiction. So you have disagreed with his approach, even while thinking
that you were imitating him. If you imitate al-Shāfiʿī, then imitate the one
he imitated. If you were to say, “We do imitate them in those matters
wherein Shāfiʿī imitated them,” it would have to be said, “This is not the
same as you imitating them, rather you are continuing to imitate him.”
Otherwise, whenever an opinion contradicting his had been related from
them, you would not have accepted a single one of his opinions.
Fifth, those scholars whom you mention did not imitate in the same
way as you do. They certainly did not allow it. Rather, the most that can be
established about them is imitation in those trivial matters concerning
which they could not find a clear text from God and His Messenger, and
they were unable to find anything other than the opinions of someone
more knowledgeable, so they imitated the latter. This is the practice of the
people of knowledge, and it is obligatory. For imitation is permissible for
the one who is compelled to do it. As for the one who turns away from the
Book, the Sunnah, the opinions of the Companions, and knowledge of the
truth with its proofs, while he had access to all this, in favor of imitation,
he is like the one who has recourse to carrion while he has the ability to
opt for that which has been ritually slaughtered. The basic principle is that
the opinion of another may not be accepted without proof, except in cases
of necessity. You have made this case of necessity your basic capital.

[4:5] The Difference between the Rank

of the Scholars and the Imitator
66. As for your statement, “al-Shāfiʿī, may God be pleased with him, said,
‘The opinions of the Companions are better for us than our own opin-
ions.’ Likewise we, too, affirm that the view of al-Shāfiʿī is better for us
than our own opinions,” there are several answers.

*
Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan b. Abī al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728), one of the most renowned Succes-
sors and a leading authority in traditionalist circles.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 167

First, you are the foremost opponents of his view. You do not regard
the opinions of the Companions as being better for you than the opin-
ions of the scholars themselves. Rather, you say, “The opinions of the
scholars are better for us than those of the Companions.” So if one
verdict comes from Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, and the greatest of
the Companions, and another from al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Mālik,
you abandon that which comes from the Companions and adopt the
verdict of the scholars. Would the Companions’ opinions not have
been better for you than those of the scholars, if you were sincere in
desiring your own good?

Excellence of the Companions and Their

Knowledge
Second, this principle, even if it is accepted, does not obligate the imita-
tion of anyone other than the Companions. This is because of how they
were chosen by God in terms of knowledge, understanding, merit, and
insight into the religion of God and His Messenger. They witnessed the
revelation, and they acquired the religion from the Prophet, with no inter-
mediary. It was revealed in their language while it was still unsullied,
pure, and free of corruption. They could return to the Messenger of God
to ask him to explain all that was difficult in the Qurʾan and the Sunnah,
until it was clarified to them. So who had this privilege after them? Who is
there who even shared this rank with them so that that he should be imi-
tated just as they are, let alone that imitation of him should be made oblig-
atory while forbidding it when it comes to them, as some of the extreme
partisans among the imitators have done. By God, between the Compan-
ions and those whom you imitate there is as much difference of knowl-
edge as of rank.
Al-Shāfiʿī said, in the Old Epistle [Risālah al-qadīmah], after mentioning
the Companions and their greatness and merits, “They are better than us
in every area of knowledge, legal reasoning, God-consciousness, intellect,
and every matter which was rectified after them. Their opinions are more
praiseworthy and preferable to us than our own.” Al-Shāfiʿī also said, “God
Himself praised the Companions in the Qurʾan, the Torah, and the Bible,
and the Prophet has already praised them in a manner that does not apply
to anyone after them.”
In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections of traditions [those of al-Bukhārī and
Muslim] it is reported from the narration of ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd, from the
168 on taqlīd

Prophet, that he said, [6] “The best of people are my generation, then
those who come after them, then those who come after them. Then people
will come who will hasten to testify even before taking oaths and who will
hasten to take oaths even before they are called to testify.” And in the two
Ṣaḥīḥs, from the ḥadīth of Abū Saʿīd* it is reported that the Prophet said,
“Do not curse my Companions. For even if one of you were to spend as
much as the mountain of ʿUhud in charity, you would not come near any
of them in reward by as much as a handful, or even half a handful.”133 Ibn
Masʿūd said, “God looked into the hearts of His servants, and he found
that the heart of Muḥammad was the best of hearts among His servants.
Then He looked to the hearts of men and found the hearts of the Compan-
ions the best of hearts among His servants, so He chose them for his
companionship. He chose them as helpers of His religion and deputies of
His Prophet. So whatever the Believers regard as good is good in the sight
of God, and whatever they regard as reprehensible is reprehensible in the
sight of God.”134 [7] The Messenger of God commanded us to follow the
Sunnah of the rightly guided Caliphs, and, in particular, to follow the two
Caliphs [Abū Bakr and ʿUmar]. Abū Saʿīd said, “Abū Bakr was the most
knowledgeable among us about the Messenger of God.”135 The Messenger
bore witness to Ibn Masʿūd’s knowledge.136 He also prayed for Ibn ʿAbbās,
that he be granted insight into the religion and taught the art of interpreta-
tion of the Qurʾan. He embraced him on one occasion and said, “O God,
grant him wisdom.”137 And in his dream, he handed ʿUmar a bowl of milk
from which ʿUmar drank [8] until he was sated and the milk emerged
from beneath his fingernails, and he interpreted this as a sign of ʿUmar’s
great knowledge.138 He also said that the people would be rightly guided if
they followed Abū Bakr and ʿUmar.139 Likewise, he said that if there were
a Prophet after him, it would be ʿUmar.140 He added that God had estab-
lished truth through [ʿUmar’s] speech and his heart.141 He also said, “I am
happy for you with that with which [10] Ibn Umm ʿAbd is happy for you,”142
by which he meant ʿAbdallāh b. Masʿūd. Their virtues, rank, and those
ways in which God favored them in terms of knowledge and excellence
are too numerous to be mentioned. So, can imitation of these be similar
to that of the ones who came after them, who are not comparable to the
latter, even in the least?

*
Abū Saʿīd Saʿd b. Mālik b. Sinān al-Khuḍrī (d. 74/693), a close Companion of the Prophet.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 169

[11] The Statements of the Companions

Are Binding Proof
Third, the Muslims are agreed that the opinion of those whom you imitate
is not a legal proof. But, at the same time, most scholars are agreed—in
fact, those whom you imitate have said explicitly—that the opinions of the
Companions are legal proofs that must be followed, and to abandon their
opinions is forbidden, as will appear in the words of the scholars them-
selves. The most eloquent of them in this matter is al-Shāfiʿī. We shall
clarify that there is no disagreement in his school over the view that the
opinion of a Companion is a legal proof. We shall mention his statements
in his later work on this matter, if God wills. We shall also show that the
one who narrates two opinions from him about this issue does so by nar-
rating the second as an extension of what he actually said. The second
opinion is not an explicit statement of his. Now, if the opinion of a Com-
panion is a proof then accepting his opinion is a specific obligation, while
the best that can be said about accepting the opinion of someone else is
that it is allowed. So analogy of one of these people [the Companions, who
issue a statement] with another [i.e., scholars who are not Companions] is
the worst and most futile of analogies.

The Natural Disposition to Imitate Teachers

That God Has Instilled in His Creation Does
Not Necessitate the Permissibility of Imitation
in the Religion
67. As for your statement, “God has instilled in mankind a natural disposi-
tion toward imitation of teachers by students in all crafts, sciences, and
so forth.” The answer to this is that this truth cannot be denied. But how
does this obligate the acceptability of imitation in the religion of God?
How does it obligate accepting the opinion of a principal without a
proof? Also, how does it obligate according precedence to his view over
those who are more knowledgeable than him and abandoning proofs
for the sake of conformity to his views and leaving the opinions of all the
people of knowledge from among the earlier and later generations in
favor of this person’s opinions? Did God create a disposition to do this
in the nature of anyone in the universe? Then it is to be said, “Rather,
God created in His servants a natural disposition toward seeking proofs
and sound evidence for the opinion of every person who makes a claim.”
170 on taqlīd

God implanted in the dispositions of men that they do not accept the
opinion of the one who does not establish evidence for the validity of
what he says. It is for this reason that God, the Exalted, established deci-
sive proofs, clear-cut arguments, lucid evidence, and luminous signs of
the truthfulness of His Messengers, so that the proof would be estab-
lished and so that all arguments for disbelief would be rendered void.
This He did, even though the Messengers were the most truthful of
God’s creation, the most knowledgeable, righteous, and perfect. Still,
they advanced clear signs and decisive proofs, despite the testimony of
their nations that they were the most truthful ones. So how can we accept
the opinions of others without proof that obligates accepting them? God,
the Exalted, only obligated accepting the Messengers’ claims after the
evidence for what they said had been established and after the appear-
ance of clear signs which necessarily showed the truthfulness of their
claim. So God created the nature of mankind in such a way that it yields
before evidence and accepts the one who provides it. This is something
shared by all people, the believer and the disbeliever, the righteous and
the wicked—that is, yielding to evidence and exalting the one who pro-
vides it. [12] If they go against this out of stubbornness and transgres-
sion, it is because their own desires would be nullified [by yielding in
this way]. How apt are the words of the one who said:

Enkindle the truth in the heart of the hearer

And leave him be, for the light of truth traverses and glows by itself.
With softness will it cling to it and forget its resistance
As the free man forgets what it was to be chained.

So the innate disposition God instilled in mankind and His own law are
among the strongest proofs against the imitators.

Differences in Capacities Do Not Necessitate

Imitation in Every Ruling
68. As for your statement, “God, the Exalted, distinguished between the
mental abilities of people just as He did between their physical abili-
ties. And by His divine wisdom and justice, it is not fitting that every-
one be obligated to know the truth with its evidence in every issue,”
and so forth.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 171

We do not deny this. Nor do we claim that God obligated everyone with the
duty of knowing the truth with its evidence in every religious issue,
whether it be minor or major. All we deny is what was rejected by the
scholars and those who preceded them among the Companions, as well as
those who followed them, and what only occurred in Islam after the pas-
sage of the meritorious generations in the fourth century, which had been
condemned by the Messenger of God.
What we deny is selecting one individual and assigning the same rank
to his verdicts as to the texts from the Lawgiver. Rather, to prefer them
over these and to accord precedence to his view over the views of all the
scholars of the community who came after the Messenger of God. We
oppose being content with imitation of him rather than gaining rulings
from the Book of God, the Sunnah of His Messenger and the statements
of the Companions, and we oppose adding to this the claim that, “This
scholar did not say anything except that which was in the Book of God and
the Sunnah of His Messenger.” Not only does issuing such a claim involve
testimony about which the one testifying has no knowledge, it is also an
ascription of something to God without any knowledge. We oppose the
practice of saying of the scholar who disagreed with him, even if he was
more knowledgeable, that “He was not correct in his interpretation of the
Qurʾan and Sunnah, and my principal is more correct.” Or saying, “Both
of them were right in their interpretation of the Book and Sunnah,” even
while their opinions are contradictory. Thus, the one who says this holds
the evidences of the Book and the Sunnah to be contradictory and conflict-
ing, holding that God and His Messenger command a thing and its op-
posite at the same time. He also maintains that His religion is subject to
the opinions of men and that, in the meantime, there is no specific ruling
for him to act on. So he either follows this approach, or he declares incor-
rect the one who disagrees with his principal. He has no choice but to
follow one of these two courses—this is among the blessings of imitation
on him.
Once you know this, then know also that we said and maintain, “God,
the Exalted, obligated His servants [13] to remain conscious of Him, as
much as they are able. The essence of remaining conscious of Him is to
know what is to be avoided and then to refrain from it. So what is obliga-
tory on every individual is to exert himself in knowing what he has to be
conscious of in every matter that concerns him (from the commands and
prohibitions of God). Then he must abide by the commands of God and
His Prophet. If he could not learn some part of it, he would be similar to
172 on taqlīd

everyone other than the Messenger (for everyone other than him had de-
fects in his knowledge). But, this does not remove such a person from the
rank of scholars. God does not obligate him with anything except knowing
the truth and following it to the extent that he is able.” Abū ʿUmar said,
“There is no one after the Messenger except that some of the Messenger’s
affairs were concealed from him.” So, in terms of knowing the truth, God,
the Most Perfect, has obligated everyone with that which he is able to per-
form, and which his strength allows him to achieve. Further, He has ex-
cused him regarding that which was concealed from him in which he
therefore errs or imitates another. This is all dictated by His wisdom, jus-
tice, and mercy. The opposite would be the case if He allowed His creation
to imitate whomever they wanted among the scholars, and if He allowed
everyone to appoint a specific person as an arbiter of the revelation, evad-
ing the obligation of acquiring rulings from the light of revelation. This
would go against His wisdom, mercy, and kindness. It would result in the
abandonment of His religion, His Book and the Sunnah of His Messen-
ger, as has happened among some people. God grants success.

Major Difference between the Imitator

and the Follower in Prayer
69. As for your statement, “In your imitation you are like the one who fol-
lows an imām in prayer, the one who traces footsteps, or the caravan
that follows a guide.” The response to the above is to say that, by God,
this is exactly what we have been crooning about. However, the real
issue is the identity of the imām, the guide, and the one who is to be
followed. God obligated His creation to be guided by him [i.e., the
Prophet], to follow him and to walk behind him. He, the Most Perfect,
swore by His honor that, if His creation tried to come to Him by every
path or to open every door leading to Him, it would not be opened
except if they entered behind the Prophet. He, by God, is the Imām of
creation, their guide and true leader. God did not create this stature of
leadership for anyone after him, except for the one who calls to him,
guiding people to him and ordering them to follow, obey and walk
behind him, without appointing for themselves a principal, Imām, or
guide other than him.

Rather, the scholars are, in relation to the people, like the leaders of prayers
and those praying behind them. Everyone prays in obedience to God and
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 173

in fulfillment of His command, so they cooperate and assist each other in

the congregation, just as is the case with the guide and the caravan. Each
one of them performs the pilgrimage [14] in obedience to God and in ful-
fillment of His command. It is not the case that the worshipper prays be-
cause the imām does. Rather, he prays whether or not the imām prays,
unlike the imitator, who adopts the view of his principal because it is his
view, not because it is the view of the Messenger. If the matter was as you
said, then the imitator would follow the opinion of the Messenger at all
times and would therefore not be an imitator. So their reliance on the
proof of the imām of prayer and the guide of a caravan bound for pilgrim-
age is one of the most convincing arguments against them.

70. The one being led in prayer knows that this prayer that he is offering
is that which God, the Exalted, has obligated on His servants and that
he and his imām are equal in being commanded with this obligation.
He also knows that this House of God, the Sacred Mosque, is the one
whose pilgrimage God obligated on those who are able to perform it
and that the obligation to do this applies equally to him and the cara-
van guide, so he does not perform the pilgrimage in imitation of the
guide, nor does he pray in imitation of the imām.

The Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, hired some-
one to show him the way to Medina, when he undertook the migration
which God had made obligatory on him.143 He prayed behind ʿAbd al-
Raḥmān b. ʿAwf,* as a follower.144 And [it is acceptable in religious law that]
the more knowledgeable one prays behind one who is like him or even
lower than him [in rank]. Indeed, it is valid that he prays behind one who
is not even a scholar. In none of this, therefore, is there any imitation.

71. The follower in prayer does exactly what the imām does, and likewise
the caravan rider with the guide. Had they not done this, they would
not be true followers. The one who follows the scholars must be the
one who acts as they did. He must do the same in terms of knowing
evidence, preferring proofs and ruling by them wherever they are and
whomsoever they are with. The one who does this is the one who

*
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf (d. 32/653), a prominent Companion of the
Prophet.
174 on taqlīd

really follows them. But if he turns away from the principle on which
the scholars’ authority is established and adopts a path other than
theirs, claiming that he is their follower, then these are merely his own
delusions, and it will be said to him, Say, “Bring forth your argument, if
you are telling the truth!” [Q., al-Naḥl, 16:64].

[15] The Companions Would Convey the Commands

of God and His Messenger to the People
72. As for your statement, “The Companions of the Messenger of God
conquered countries while people were newly embracing Islam, and
the people would seek verdicts from the Companions. But they would
not respond to anyone by saying, ‘You must seek the truth in this ver-
dict with evidence.’” The answer to this is that they did not issue ver-
dicts to them based on their own opinions. Rather, they conveyed to
them whatever was said by their Prophet, as well as his actions and
commands. So the verdicts that they issued themselves constituted
both the ruling and the proof. They would say to the ones who asked
them for verdicts, “This is the trust of our Prophet to us, and this is
our trust to you.” What they would convey to them would therefore be
both the proof and the ruling. For the speech of the Messenger of God
is both the ruling and the proof thereof. Likewise, the Qurʾan. People
at that time were eager to know what their Prophet said, did, and com-
manded, and this the Companions conveyed to them.

How is this comparable to a time in which those who only seem to re-
semble real men search for what was said by this or that individual? The
later in time a person is, the more the contemporary scholars adopt his
views and the more they abandon (or almost abandon) the views of those
who preceded him. This continues until you find that the followers of the
Imāms are the ones who most often ignore their opinions. The people of
each age deliver judgments and verdicts based on the views of those lower
than the Imāms—and lower still—and those closest to them. As time pro-
gresses, the abandonment of earlier opinions increases, as does the prac-
tice of turning away from them. This continues until the earlier scholar’s
own books almost disappear. The more distant in time he is, the more
likely this is to be so. But where is the proof that the Companions of the
Messenger of God said to the Successors, “Let each one of you appoint for
himself a man whom he chooses in order to imitate him in his religion;
you ought not to turn to anyone other than him or to gain rulings from the
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 175

Book and the Sunnah. Rather, you ought to acquire these rulings by imi-
tating mere men. So, if you learn something from God and His Messen-
ger, while something else comes to you from the one you appointed as
your principal, do you adopt the view of the one you imitate and leave
whatever comes to you from God and His Messenger”? By God, if the veil
were lifted from your eyes and the truth were to become manifest to you,
you would see your actions in relation to those of the Companions just as
a poet has described:

They descended on Mecca amongst the tribes of Hāshim,

While I found myself in the open desert, the furtherest of places,

And as another has versified:

She went to the East. I, to the West

But what distance between those navigating East and West! [16]

And as another said:

You are marrying Pleiades to Canopus!

By God, can the twain e’er be wed?
She, in her stride, is Syrian-inclined
While Canopus’ stride is all Sabaean.

Imitation Is Not Among the Necessities

of Sacred Law
73. As for your statement, “Imitation is necessitated by sacred law and
divine decree. Even those who reject it are forced to accept it as has
preceded in the discussion on rulings.” The answer to this is that the
imitation that is rejected and condemned, even if it is among the mat-
ters that are necessitated by divine decree, is not among the obliga-
tions of sacred law. Rather, the law requires that it be viewed as void
and corrupt, as is known by the reasons we have mentioned and many
others besides them. Instead, what is a religious necessity is to be
guided on the basis of proof. These issues that you mention as reli-
gious necessities are not imitation. Rather, they come under [the
rubric of ] following evidence and obeying the commands of the Law-
giver. If you refuse to accept this and persist in calling it imitation,
176 on taqlīd

then from this perspective, imitation is correct, and it is part of the

law. But this does not compel us to hold that this discordant imitation
that emerged later is part of the religion or that is it one of its necessi-
ties. Rather, its nullity is a religious imperative.
74. The opposite of every religious obligation stands nullified necessarily.
If imitation, about which there is disagreement, is among the obliga-
tions imposed by law, then the nullity of seeking proofs and following
evidence is established [because imitation would be obligatory and
ijtihād, its opposite, would therefore be forbidden]. So, accepting one
of these two propositions necessitates the rejection of the other; the
veracity of one, dictates the nullity of the other. We intend to mention
this as evidence and say, “If imitation is part of the religion, then it
cannot be permissible to abandon it in favor of ijtihād and the seeking
of inferences, because that would necessitate its invalidity.”

If it is said, “Both of them are religious obligations, but one of them is

more complete than the other, so it is permissible to leave that which is
less perfect for that which is more so.” It is to be said in response, “As the
doors of ijtihād are shut according to you, and, as you closed off the paths
leading to it, the only thing that remains as an obligation is imitation. So,
leaving it for something the doors to which are closed and the path thereto
blocked, is, for you, a sin [17] and the one who traverses this path is a
sinner.” The effacement of the path of knowledge, nullification of the clear
Signs and proofs of God, and the claim that the world can be empty of one
who stands forth with God’s proofs, implied in this view, are sufficient to
render it void and worthy of being discarded. The Prophet guaranteed that
a group of his community would not desist from the truth and would not
be harmed by those who seek to disgrace them, nor by those who oppose
them until the Last Hour is established. These are the people of knowl-
edge and insight into that which God sent His Prophet with. They are the
people of insight and clarity, as opposed to the blind one who testifies that
he is not among the people of knowledge and vision and hence must
imitate.
What is necessary by law is to follow evidence, to be guided by it, and
to accord precedence to the clear divine texts over the opinions of men.
Likewise, to regard the Book and Sunnah as arbiters in everything over
which the scholars have differed. As regards being wary of the texts, leav-
ing them for the opinions of men and preferring them over the texts, de-
nouncing the one who considers the Book of God, the Sunnah of His
Messenger, and the opinions of the Companions the arbiter (and judges
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 177

the opinions of scholars by them and does not take an ally other than God
and His Messenger), the invalidity of this is among the requirements of
sacred law. Religion cannot be complete without denouncing and invali-
dating such a position. Following evidence is something entirely different
from this imitation. God grants success.

Narration Is Different from Imitation

75. As for your statement, “Every narrated proof which you rely on to es-
tablish the invalidity of imitation, you yourselves are imitators of those
who bore that narration and transmitted it. So the scholar has no
option but to imitate the one who narrates, the judge must imitate the
witness, the layperson, a scholar,” and so forth.

The answer to this has already been given many times. What you refer to
as imitation here is, in fact, obedience to the command of God and His
Messenger, and if this were imitation, every scholar in this world after the
Companions would be an imitator. Rather, the Companions who adopted
the opinions of their contemporaries would also be imitators. Such a com-
parison will not issue forth, except from a quarrelsome man or one who
seeks to confuse the truth with falsehood and to conceal the truth with the
cloak of falsehood. The imitator, because of his ignorance, takes a sound
form of imitation and relies on it for proving the validity of its unsound
forms, because of a common factor present in both. But he ignores the
distinguishing factor between them. This is therefore, a type of invalid
analogy, the reprehensibility of which is agreed upon, which is, in fact,
related to this type of invalid imitation. Both are equal in their invalidity.
So if God declares the report of a truthful person a proof and likewise
the testimony of the just person, [18] the one who follows this is not termed
an imitator. If he is to be called that for following the evidence, then hasten
to accept this kind of imitation, for are we crooning about anything other
than this? God is the Helper.

A Reply to Those Who Assert That Imitation

Is Safer Than Seeking Evidence
76. As for your statement, “You do not allow imitation out of fear that the
imitator will fall into error if the one whom he imitates is incorrect in
his opinion. You then obligate him to look into the evidence and to
178 on taqlīd

weigh it in search of the truth. But there can be no doubt that he will
be closer to the mark by imitating someone who is more knowledge-
able than him than if he were to perform ijtihād for himself. Just as the
one who wants to buy an article about which he has no knowledge, if
he were to follow an expert, one who is informed, trustworthy, and
sincere in giving advice, he would be more correct and more likely to
attain what he desires than if he were to struggle for the truth by
himself.”

There are several responses to this.

First, we declare imitation to be prohibited out of obedience to God and
His Messenger. It is God and His Messenger who have prohibited it. God
also condemned those who perform it in His Book, as He commanded that
He and His Messenger be made arbiters and that everything about which
the community of Muslims disagrees be referred to Him and His Messen-
ger. He informed us that He alone possesses dominion and forbade the
practice of regarding anyone other than Him and His Messenger as an
authority. He commanded that His Book be held on to, and He forbade
that others should be taken as allies and lords beside Him, with what they
declare lawful being considered so and what they declare unlawful being
considered so. He designated those who do not know what He revealed to
His Messenger as falling under the category of cattle, and He commanded
obedience to those in authority, if this entails obedience to His Prophet, in
that those in authority follow him and inform others about his affairs. He
swore by His Own Most Glorious Self that we do not believe unless we
make the Prophet alone the arbiter in everything that we disagree over and
until we refer to the authority of no one but him. Then, we must not find
in ourselves any opposition to his decision (as is the case of the imitators
when an order of the Prophet appears against the opinion of the one they
imitate). Instead, we must submit to his judgment completely, just as the
imitators submit to the opinions of those they imitate. Rather, our submis-
sion must be more complete than theirs. God is the Helper!
God condemned those who seek an authority other than the Prophet.
This was the established rule while the Prophet was alive and remains so,
in just the same way, after his death. If he were alive in our midst and we
were to refer to someone other than him as an authority, we would be
among those who deserve condemnation and punishment. Similarly, his
Sunnah, the true religion, and the guidance that he came with cannot
perish. Even if his noble person is lost to the community, his Sunnah,
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 179

message, and guidance are not. Knowledge and guidance are secure in
their place, and whoever searches for them, finds them. God, the Exalted,
guaranteed safekeeping of the religion [19] that He revealed to His Mes-
senger. It will forever remain safe with the protection of God, so that the
proof of God on His creation is established generation upon generation.
Since their [the community’s] Prophet was the last of the Prophets, and
there is none after him, God’s safeguarding of this religion and His revela-
tion does not stand in need of another Messenger after him. So what God,
the Exalted, obligated the Companions and what He ordered them to do,
to spread the knowledge and guidance of the Qurʾan and the Sunnah
alone and of nothing other than these two, is exactly what has been made
obligatory on those who come after them. This order is decisive, and it has
not been abrogated, nor can abrogation ever approach it until God finishes
and rolls up the world.
God condemns the one who turns away when he is called toward that
which God has revealed to His Messenger. Such a person has been warned
that he will be afflicted with a malediction because of his turning away
from this. This affliction will affect his heart, religion, and worldly exis-
tence. God also warns the one who turns away from His command and
follows another that he will be afflicted with a severe torment or a painful
punishment. The affliction will affect his heart, and the painful torment
will affect his body and spirit. Each is a corollary of the other. For the one
who is afflicted in his heart because he turned away from what was re-
vealed to the Messenger and opposed him by turning toward another
must be thus afflicted. God, the Exalted, informs us that, when He decrees
a matter through the words of His Prophet, it is not permissible for any
believer to choose something other than what His Messenger chose.
Indeed, there is no choice left for a believer after God’s Messenger has
delivered judgment. So we ask those who perform imitation, “Is it possi-
ble that in many cases the judgment of God and His Messenger was not
known to those you imitate?” If they say, “Yes, it is not possible that this
was not known to them,” they have placed them in a rank greater than that
of Abū Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmān, ʿAlī, and all of the Companions.

Issues That Remained Concealed

to the Major Companions
Some part of what God and His Messenger decided remained concealed
from each one of the Companions.
180 on taqlīd

Issues That Eluded Abū Bakr

Consider the truthful one [i.e., Abū Bakr], may God be pleased with him,
who was the most knowledgeable of the community, yet knowledge of the
inheritance share of the grandmother eluded him until Muḥammad b.
Maslamah* and Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah† informed him about it.145 He was
also unaware of the ruling that there is no blood money for the martyr
[20], until ʿUmar informed him of this and then he adopted his view.146

[21] Issues That Eluded ʿUmar

ʿUmar was not aware of the ruling regarding purification with dried earth
[tayammum] for the one who was in a state of ritual impurity, so he said
that such a person is not to pray, even if his impure state lasts for a
month, unless he is able to bathe himself.147 He was also unaware of the
compensation to be awarded for the loss of fingers [in a criminal assault],
so he ruled regarding the amputated thumb and the finger that comes
next to it that 25 camels were due as compensation for these, until he was
informed that the book of the children of ʿAmr b. Ḥazm‡ contained a
ruling from the Prophet, in which he ruled that ten camels were the cor-
rect compensation in such cases. So he abandoned his view and went
back on it.148 He was also unaware of the manner in which consent has to
be sought before entering someone’s house, until he was informed about
this by Abū Mūsā and Abū Saʿīd [22] al-Khuḍrī.149 He was also unaware
of the inheritance share of the widow from the blood money of her de-
ceased husband, until Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sufyān al-Kilābī§ wrote to him—and he
was a bedouin of the inner desert—that the Prophet, may the peace and
blessings of God be upon him, commanded him to grant a share of in-
heritance to the widow of Ashyam al-Ḍibābī from the latter’s blood
money. He was similarly unaware of the ruling regarding a woman who
delivered a child prematurely, until he asked about this and found the

*
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Muḥammad b. Maslamah al-Anṣārī (d. 45/666), a Companion of the
Prophet.
†
Abū ʿAbdallāh Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah al-Thaqafī (d. 50/670), a Companion of the Prophet.
‡
ʿAmr b. Ḥazm b. Zayd al-Khazrajī (d. 53/672), a Companion of the Prophet.
§
Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sufyān b. ʿAwf al-Kilābī, a Companion from whom Ḥasan al-Baṣrī and others
narrate but whose biographical details are sketchy.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 181

answer with Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah.150 He was also unaware of the ruling

on Zoroastrians, in particular, whether or not they were required to pay
the minority tax [jizyah], until ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf informed him that
the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him,
took the jizyah from the Zoroastrians of the region of Hajar.151 He was
also unaware of the ruling that the requirement of a farewell circumam-
bulation around the Holy House in Mecca* was waived for a woman in
her menstrual period, and he would send them back until they were pure
and would then command them to perform the circumambulation [23],
until it reached him that the Prophet, may the peace an blessings of God
be upon him, had acted contrary to this, so he went back on his own
view.152 He was also unaware of the equal payment to be given for all fin-
gers lost as a result of criminal assault, and he would distinguish be-
tween them, until the Sunnah regarding equality in compensation
reached him, and so he adopted it. The issue of the tamattuʿ pilgrimage†
also eluded him, and he would not allow it, until he came to know [24]
that the Prophet commanded it, so he abandoned his view and acted ac-
cording to the former.153 He was also unaware of the permissibility of
calling people by the names of the Prophets, and he ruled against the
validity of this, until he was informed by Abū Ṭalḥah‡ that the Prophet,
may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, had given him the
teknonymic [kunyah] Abū Muḥammad so he abandoned his own view
and did not stubbornly insist on his own view of prohibition.154 He was
ignorant of the correct ruling in this area, even though Abū Mūsā,§
Muḥammad b. Maslamah,** and Abū Ayyūb†† were among the most
famous Companions. But still he did not know, so he issued orders re-
garding it, going so far as to prohibit it. He was also unaware of the cor-
rect interpretation of the words of the Most High, Truly you will die, and

*
The farewell circumambulation around the Kaʿbah marks the end of the major pilgrimage.
†
A pilgrimage in which the minor (ʿumrah) and major (ḥajj) pilgrimages are performed
during one journey, with a break in between them.
‡
Abū Ṭalḥah Zayd b. Sahl (d. 20/641), a close Companion of the Prophet.
§
Mūsā is the Arabic form of “Moses.”
**
Muḥammad b. Maslamah al-Anṣārī (d. 43/663), a Companion of the Prophet.
††
Abū Ayyūb Khālid b. Zayd al-Anṣārī (d. 50/670), a Companion of the Prophet. Ayyūb is
the Arabic form of “Job.”
182 on taqlīd

truly they (too) will die. [Q., al-Zumar, 39:30] and His Words, Muḥammad
is no more than an Apostle, many were the Apostles that passed away before
him. If he died or were slain, will you then turn back on your heels? [Q., Āl-
ʿImrān, 3:144], so that he said, “By God, it is as if I had not heard these
words until this moment.”155
[25] Likewise, the correct ruling regarding giving a dowry that involved
an excess over the dowries given to the wives and daughters of the Prophet,
may the peace and blessings of God be upon him, was concealed from
him, until he was reminded by a woman of the words of the Most High,
Even if you had given the latter a whole treasure for dower, take not the least bit
of it back. [Q., al-Nisāʾ, 4:20] and he said, “Everyone has more insight than
ʿUmar, yes, even the women.”156
This is similar to the issue of the inheritance share of the grandfather
and the one who dies without any heirs, in which the truth also eluded
him. It also eluded him in certain areas of the law relating to interest; thus
he expressed his wish that the Messenger of God, may the peace and
blessings of God be on him, had issued them an authoritative directive in
this.157 It also escaped him on the day of [the treaty of ] Ḥudaybiyyah [in
6/628] that the promise of God to His Messenger and the Companions
regarding entry into Mecca was general and not specific to that particular
year, until the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him,
clarified this to him.158 He was also unaware of the permissibility of using
perfume for the one in a state of ritual sanctity and also regarding such an
individual applying perfume after having completed the ritual of sacrifice
and before the farewell circumambulation, even though this action is ap-
proved of in the Sunnah.159 He was also unaware of the correct view re-
garding the permissibility of going to an area in which there was [26] a
plague and the impermissibility of fleeing from such a place, until he was
informed that the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God
be upon him, had said, “When you hear of the plague appearing in an
area, do not enter it. And if it occurs while you are in an area, do not leave
that area, and do not flee from it.”160
This is the condition of the one who was definitely the most knowl-
edgeable of the community after the truthful one. He was the one about
whom Ibn Masʿūd said, “If the knowledge of ʿUmar was placed in one
scale and the knowledge of all the people of earth was placed in the other,
ʿUmar’s knowledge would outweigh it.” Aʿmash said, “I mentioned this to
Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, so he said, ‘By God, I estimate that ʿUmar walked off
with nine-tenths of all knowledge.’”
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 183

- Abı̄ Mūsa,
[27] Issues That Eluded ʿUthman, - Ibn
- and Ibn Masʿūd
ʿAbbas,
ʿUthmān was unaware of the minimum period of pregnancy, until Ibn
ʿAbbās mentioned it by referring to the words of the Most High, The car-
rying of the (child) to his weaning is (a period of) thirty months [Q., al-Aḥqāf,
46:15], and His words, The mothers shall give suck to their offspring for two
whole years [Q., al-Baqarah, 2:233], so he adopted this view.161
Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī was unaware that the inheritance share of the
daughter of the son alongside the daughter of the deceased, was one-
sixth, until it was mentioned to him that the Messenger of God, may the
peace and blessings of God be on him, awarded her this much as her
share of inheritance.162 Ibn ʿAbbās was unaware of the impermissibility
of eating the meat of domesticated donkeys, until it was recounted to
him that the Messenger of God, may the peace and blessings of God be
on him, had forbidden it on the day of [the battle of ] Khaybar [in 7/628].163
Ibn Masʿūd was unaware of the ruling regarding the dowry of a widow
whose marriage was not consummated and who had not received a
dowry, so he vacillated about it [28] for a month and issued a verdict
based on his own reasoning, after which an explicit ruling on this from
the Prophet reached him.

That Which Eluded Others Was Even Greater than

That Which Eluded the Companions
This is a vast area, and if we were to allow ourselves to be led into it, it
would become a long narrative, so we suffice by asking the party of imita-
tion, “Is it possible for some affair of the Messenger of God, may the peace
and blessings of God be on him, to be unknown to those you imitate?” If
they say, “The one we imitate was not unaware of any such matter, even
though the Companions themselves were unaware of some of them, de-
spite their proximity to the Prophet,” they have truly indulged in extrem-
ism like the one who declares all scholars to be incapable of error. But if he
acknowledges that it is possible for some of them to be unaware of this—
and that this is, in fact, what occurred—and that they are of various ranks
based on how much or how little they knew or did not know, then we say,
“We ask you, by God, the One who is watching over every tongue and
heart, if God and His Messenger have delivered a judgment about some-
thing that was unknown to the one you imitate, do you still have a choice
184 on taqlīd

between acceptance and rejection of their judgments, or is your choice

nullified by your obligation to act exactly according to their commands. Is
it not now impermissible for you to act according to the opinion of anyone
else?” Prepare an answer to this question, and the truth alongside it. For
the question is inevitable. And an answer, necessary. This is the main
issue that keeps us from performing imitation. Can you bring forth even
a single proof that would answer this charge and allow you an option re-
garding the imitation which you have happily chosen for yourself?

Fallacy of the Imitator’s Claim

Second, your statement that the imitator falls closer to the mark by imitat-
ing someone who is his peer or is more knowledgeable than him than by
performing his own ijtihād is a false, baseless statement. This is because,
if he imitates someone who himself was opposed by those who were more
knowledgeable than him or those who were of his rank, then the imitator
does not know whether he is correct or not by imitating his principal.
Rather he is, [29] as al-Shāfiʿī said, a person who collects wood at night,
who could return either with precious wood or with a snake that could bite
him. If he exerts himself in ijtihād and in searching for the truth, then he
is in one of two possible states. Either he is correct in it and so receives
two rewards, or he is in error and so receives one reward only.164 Thus, he
gets rewarded no matter what. This is contrary to the case of the fanatic
partisan imitator, because, even if he is correct, he does not get the reward,
and, if he is wrong, he is not safe from earning a penalty. How can the
veracity of the one who is blind be compared to the veracity of the one who
exhausts himself in his search for the truth?
Third, he would be closer to the truth only if he knew that the truth lay
with the one whom he imitates and not with anyone else. And if he truly
knows this, then he is not an imitator of him but is, rather, someone who
follows him based on evidence. If he truly does not know this, then how
can you arrive at the conclusion that he is closer to the truth than the one
who exhausts and devotes himself to searching for the truth?
Fourth, the one who is closer to the truth in cases of disagreement among
the scholars is necessarily the one who follows the command of God and
refers the dispute to the Qurʾan and Sunnah. As for the one who refers it to
his principal without considering anybody else, how is he closer to the truth?
Fifth, the example which you yourself have offered argues strongly
against you. For the one who seeks to buy an item or to traverse a path
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 185

over which the people are divided into two or three groups, each com-
manding the opposite of what all the others command, such a person does
not prefer imitating one group alone out of all of them. Rather, he goes
back and forth, seeking the most correct opinion out of all of them. If he
does prefer the opinion of just one, even while the rest are no less knowl-
edgeable, sincere, and pious, or when the rest are in fact better than the
one he has chosen, this person would be counted among those who had
erred. He would be blameworthy and would not be praised for his con-
duct, even if he were to arrive at the truth. Indeed, God has created a natu-
ral disposition in people of intellect that, when faced with a situation such
as this, they pause and seek to establish the superiority of one among the
many discordant views through some external reference until the truth is
apparent to them. He did not create their natures so as to converge and
accept the view of one individual and abandon the views of all others.

77. It is said to the party of imitators, “Do you allow the imitation of every
scholar among the earliest generations and the later ones, or only of
some of them and not others?” If you allow imitation of all of them,
[30] then your doing so for the one whose school you belong to and of
someone other than him are comparable. So how do the opinions of
this one scholar become the school for you, by which you issue ver-
dicts and judgments, while you have allowed imitation of him, just as
you have allowed imitation of another? How did this individual
become the principal of your school and not the other? How did you
make it permissible to leave the statements of one and to accept those
of another while both were scholars whose imitation was allowed? If
the opinions of one of these scholars was part of the religion, how can
it be allowed for you to reject the religion? And if his opinions were
not part of the religion, how did you allow imitation of him? To this
you can have no answer.

Two Narrations from One of the Scholars Are Like

-
Two Opinions from the Imams
78. If two opinions or narrations are transmitted from those whom you
imitate, you deem it permissible to act on both. You justify this by saying,
“He was a mujtahid who had two opinions, so we are free to choose
either one.” And both opinions together constitute the legal school [mad-
hhab] for you. So why not treat the opinion of a rival mujtahid [whom you
186 on taqlīd

oppose] like the alternative opinion of the first mujtahid and make both
of them your madhhab? It may be that the opinions of the mujtahids who
are more knowledgeable, whom you oppose, are preferable to the alter-
native opinion of the first mujtahid and also closer to the Book and the
Sunnah.
79. O you, party of imitation, if some of your scholars from your own
school, whom you imitate, issue an opinion that contradicts the opin-
ion of the principal of the school, or if they derive a new opinion based
on this, you regard this as acceptable and issue judgments and ver-
dicts according to this new opinion [that comes from your own school].
Yet if an Imām who was a contemporary of your principal or even su-
perior to him in rank has an opinion that contradicts that of your prin-
cipal, you do not incline toward it nor is it of any great significance for
you. Even though it is well known that just one of the scholars among
those who were contemporaries of your principal is more exalted than
all the subsequent scholars of your school from beginning to end. So
how evil is your division and taxonomy of scholars that it would make
the view of the lesser scholar a salient view in the school. By God, this
is extraordinary. The verdict or judgment of one who supposedly de-
cides in accordance with one of the scholars of the madhhab is more
worthy of acceptance than the verdict of one who bases his verdicts on
the opinions of the rightly guided Caliphs, as well as the opinions of
Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿUbayy b. Kaʿb, Abū l-Dardāʾ*, and Muʿādh b.
Jabal. These [positions you find yourselves in] are among the bless-
ings of imitation upon you.
80. You seek refuge from this strategy by saying, “Imitation of some
scholars is allowed and imitation of ] others is not.” Now, every group
among you says that it is allowed [31] or obligatory to imitate its own
principals but no one else among the scholars of the religion who
were like him or were more knowledgeable. The least that would
occur as a result of this is contradiction between your opinion and
that of the other party [which claims the same for its own principal],
with these opinions clashing against each other. Then it will be said
to you, “How does your principal come to be more deserving of being
imitated than that of the rival party? Through which Book and
through which Sunnah [do you resolve this contradiction]? Was it not

*
Abū l-Dardāʾ (d. 32/653), a close Companion of the Prophet.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 187

because of this that the affair of the community divided up into

pieces between itself with each sect rejoicing in that which is with itself
[Q., al-Muʾminūn, 23:53]?”

Every faction calls toward imitation of its principal, removing itself further
from the others and preventing people from going toward them. This
leads to division within the community and to the religion of God becom-
ing subservient to the desires and whims of people and so becoming vul-
nerable to confusion and discord. All this is a proof that imitation is not
from God, because of the tremendous disagreement that is inherent in it.
The disagreements among them [the muqallids] and the fact that their
opinions go against each other are sufficient to show the evil of this school
of thought. [This disagreement, by itself, would have been sufficient to
establish the corruption of this school] even if there was nothing worse in
it than their upholding imitation of their principal while forbidding that of
one of the major Companions, as has clearly been stated in their books.

Imitators Obligate Imitation of Their Scholars

and Forbid Imitation of Others
81. The imitators pass, explicitly, a void judgment against God regarding
His divine decree and His law, one which opposes what His Messenger
informed us of. They maintain that the world is void of those who
would establish God’s proof on it. They say, “There are no scholars left
on the earth since the by-gone era.” Another group among them says,
“It is not permissible for anyone to choose an opinion of a scholar after
Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf, Zufar b. al-Hudhayl,* Muḥammad b. al-
Ḥasan, and al-Ḥasan b. Ziyād al Luʾluʾī,† this being the opinion of many
among the Ḥanafīs. Bakr b. ʿAlā l-Qushayrī al-Mālikī‡ said, “It is not
allowed for anyone to choose an opinion of a scholar after the first two
centuries of Islam,” and yet others say, “It is not allowed for anyone to
choose after al-Awzāʿī and Sufyān al-Thawrī, Wakīʿ b. al-Jarrāḥ, and

*
Zufar b. al-Hudhayl (d. 157/774), considered the third most important student of Abū
Ḥanīfah.
†
Ḥasan b. Ziyād al-Luʾluʾī (d. 204/820), an important Ḥanafī scholar.
‡
Bakr b. Muḥammad b. al-ʿAlā b. Muḥammad al-Qushayrī al-Mālikī (d. 344/955), a leading
Mālikī scholar, who settled in Egypt.
188 on taqlīd

ʿAbdallāh b. al-Mubārak.” Yet another group says, “It is not permissible

for anyone to choose after al-Shāfiʿī.” The imitators among his followers
differed about the status of those who attributed themselves to him and
also about the identities of the ones who possessed sufficient authority
in the school for later verdicts and judgments in the school being ren-
dered according to their views. So they divided these scholars who were
affiliated to particular principals into three ranks: those whose views
are authoritative, such as Ibn Surayj,* al-Qaffāl,† [32] and Abū Ḥāmid
al-Isfarāʾīnī‡; those whose views were to be considered but were not
authoritative, such as Abū l-Maʿālī§; and those who were neither, such as
Abū Ḥāmid [al-Ghazālī],** among others.

They also disagreed and adopted several divergent views about the time at
which the gates of ijtihād were closed, but for none of these views did God
reveal any authority. According to them, it is acceptable for there to be a
time when the earth is devoid of those who stand on the path of God with
evidence and for it to be empty of those who speak on the basis of knowl-
edge. They regard it as impermissible for anyone after that time to look to
the Book of God or the Sunnah for the purpose of acquiring rulings from
them. Nor do they deem it permissible for one to judge and render ver-
dicts based directly on what is in the Qurʾan and Sunnah, unless this cor-
responds to the opinion of the principal and the one he imitates. If the
latter’s opinion happens to match [with what is in the Qurʾan and Sunnah],
then a judgment can be delivered and a verdict passed according to [the
sources]. If not, then the Qurʾan and Sunnah must not be accepted and
therefore must be rejected.
These statements have, as can be seen, reached the limit of corruption,
nullity, contradiction, and [the sin of ] speaking about God without knowl-
edge, rejecting His proofs, and turning away from His Book and the
Sunnah of His Messenger and deriving rulings from them.

*
Aḥmad b. ʿUmar b. Surayj (d. 306/918), the leading Shāfiʿī scholar of his generation.
†
Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Shāshī, known as al-Qaffāl (d. 365/976), a re-
nowned Shāfiʿī scholar.
‡
Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāʾīnī (d. 406/1015), the leading Shāfiʿī scholar of his generation.
§
Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085), a renowned Shāfiʿī jurist and kalām scholar.
**
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 555/1111), a renowned Shāfiʿī jurist and author of numerous
theological and devotional treatises.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 189

And God refuses to accept this. Rather, He is not satisfied until He

manifests His light and ratifies His Messenger’s statement, “This earth
will never be devoid of someone who establishes God’s authority,” and that
there will always be a group from his community who will remain firm on
the truth with which he was sent and that someone will, at the turn of
every century, be raised for this community to renew the religion for it.165
It is sufficient to establish the corruption of these statements [33] to say to
the ones who utter them, “When it is not permissible for someone to choose
[an opinion] after the passing of the scholars whom you have mentioned,
how did you happen to choose imitation of them as opposed to others?”
How have you prohibited a person from choosing the opinion his ijtihād
compelled him to accept as the one that conforms to the Qurʾan and Sunnah?
While, at the same time, you deem it permissible for yourselves to choose
the statement of your principal, obliging the community to imitate him, and
prohibiting imitation of others, preferring imitation of him instead.
What has allowed you this choice, which does not carry any evidence
from the Book, the Sunnah, consensus, analogy, and the statements of the
Companions? And what authority has prohibited you from making a
choice that is sanctioned by evidences from the Book, Sunnah, and the
statements of Companions?
It will be said to you, “If it is not permissible according to you and
others to choose [an opinion of a scholar] after the first two centuries of
Islam, how is it permissible for you to choose the opinions of Mālik rather
than the opinions of those who were superior to him from among the
Companions and their followers or those who are like him, from among
the scholars of different regions or those who came after him, while you
yourself were not born until 60 years had passed since the passing of the
first two centuries.”
The corollary of this statement is that Ashhab*, Ibn Mājishūn,†
Muṭarrif b. ʿAbdallāh,‡ Aṣbagh b. al-Faraj,§ Saḥnūn b. Saʿīd, Aḥmad b.

*
Miskīn b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ashhab (d. 204/820), a renowned Egyptian Mālikī jurist.
†
ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Mājishūn (d. 214/829), a renowned Medinese Mālikī jurist.
He and his brother Muṭarrif are referred to as the “two brothers” in the Mālikī tradition.
‡
Muṭarrif b. ʿAbdallāh. b. Muṭarrif (d. 220/835), a renowned Medinese Mālikī jurist.
§
Aṣbagh b. al-Faraj b. Saʿīd (d. 225/840), a prominent Egyptian Mālikī scholar and student
of Ibn al-Qāsim.
190 on taqlīd

al-Muʿadhal,* and those scholars who are of their rank had a choice in the
matter until the end of the twelfth month in the year two hundred. Then,
when the new moon appeared for the first month in the year two hundred
and one, and the sun set that evening, that which has been a completely
permissible option for them became impermissible, without any reprieve.
It will be said to others, is it not among the woes and wonders of this
world that you allow the scholars whom you have mentioned to choose an
opinion as you allow them to use analogy and ijtihād and to issue opinions
regarding the religion of God based on one’s own views? Then you do not
permit a choice and ijtihād for the scholars of Islam and the ones who
were more knowledgeable about the Book of God, the Sunnah of His Mes-
senger, and the statements of his Companions and their verdicts, such as
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Shāfiʿī, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl
al-Bukhārī, Dāʾūd b. ʿAlī,† and their contemporaries. You do this, despite
the extensive knowledge of these scholars regarding the Sunnah, their
awareness of the authentic and ambiguous forms of it, their zeal to learn
the opinions of the Companions and the Successors, and the subtlety and
refinement of the inferences they drew from evidence. Whoever among
them advocated analogy, his analogy [34] is closer to the truth, further
away from its corrupt forms and closest in meaning and spirit to the texts.
You advance the view that they should not be imitated, despite their ex-
alted piety and the fact that God has bestowed the love of the Believers and
the respect of the Muslim scholars and masses upon them.
If every sect from the imitators argues for the primacy of its principal
for any possible reason such as his belonging to an earlier time, his as-
ceticism and piety, his meeting with venerable and ordinary scholars
whom those after him could not meet, or the large number of his follow-
ers who are not rivalled by anyone else, another group is able to argue for
the primacy of their principal with these same arguments—or similar
ones—or those even better.
It is also possible for someone else to say to them, “The implementation
of your statement—provided you disdain contradiction—obligates you to
leave the statements of your principal for the statement of the eldest Com-
panions, the Successors, and those who were more knowledgeable, who
possessed greater piety, asceticism, and a larger following and who were

*
Abū l-Faḍl Aḥmad b. al-Muʿadhal b. Ghaylān b. al-Ḥakam al-Fahdī, a Basran jurist and
kalām scholar and a disciple of Ibn Mājishūn.
†
Dāʾūd b. ʿAlī al-ẓāhirī (d. 270/883), founder of the ẓāhirī school of law.
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 191

more respected. Is there any comparison between the rank and number of
the followers of Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd, Zayd b. Thābit, and Muʿādh b. Jabal,
let alone the followers of ʿUmar and ʿAlī and the followers of later scholars?”

Merit of the Companions and Those Who

Followed Them
Here, [consider] Abū Hurayrah. Al-Bukhārī said, “Eight thousand men
learned from him, including other Companions and the Successors.”
Here you have Zayd b. Thābit. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās is just one of his many
associates. Where, in the followers of the later scholars, is there to be
found anyone like ʿAtāʾ, Ṭāwūs,* Mujāhid, ʿIkramah,† ʿUbaydallāh b.
ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUtbah,‡ and Jābir b. Zayd§? Where, among their followers,
are the likes of the two Saʿīds,** al-Shaʿbī, Masrūq, ʿAlqamah,†† al-Aswad,‡‡
and Shurayḥ to be found? Where, among them, are to be found those of
the rank of al-Nāfiʿ, Sālim,§§ al-Qāsim,*** ʿUrwah,††† Khārijah b. Zayd,‡‡‡
Sulaymān b. Yasār,§§§ and Abū Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān****?

*
Ṭāwūs b. Kaysān (d. 106/724), a renowned Successor.
†
ʿIkramah b. ʿAbdallāh al-Barbarī (d. 105/723), a freed slave of Ibn ʿAbbās and a leading
scholar.
‡
ʿUbāydallāh b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUtbah (d. 98/717), a prominent Medinese legal authority.
§
Jābir b. Zayd al-Azadī (d. 93/711), a Successor from Basra, who is considered one of the
leading students of Ibn ʿAbbās.
**
The two Saʿīds: Saʿīd b. Jubayr (d. 45/655), a renowned Successor, who was executed by
Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf, and Saʿīd b. al Muṣayyib.
††
ʿAlqamah b. Qays al-Nakhaʿī (d. 62/682), a renowned Successor.
‡‡
Al-Aswad b. Yazīd (d. 75/694), a renowned scholar, who accepted Islam in the lifetime of
the Prophet but did not meet him and hence is not counted among the Companions.
§§
Sālim b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar (d. 106/724), a renowned Successor and grandson of the
second caliph.
***
Al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad b. Abū Bakr (d. 108/726), one of the renowned seven jurists of
Medina from the generation of the Successors and a nephew of the Prophet’s wife ʿĀʾishah.
†††
ʿUrwah b. al-Zubayr (d. 93/711), one of the renowned seven jurists of Medina from the
generation of the Successors and a nephew of the Prophet’s wife ʿĀʾishah.
‡‡‡
Khārijah b. Zayd b. Thābit al-Anṣārī (d. 100/719).
§§§
Sulaymān b. Yasār (d. 109/727), a client of Maymūnah, wife of the Prophet.
****
Abū Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 94/712), one of the renowned seven jurists of Medina,
from the generation of the Successors.
192 on taqlīd

Are your scholars somehow more fortunate with their followers than
these Companions were with theirs? The Companions and their followers
were great, as was the age in which they lived, but it is almost as if it was
this very fact, alongside their exaltedness and pre-eminence, that prohib-
ited the later generations from following them!
In accordance with the spirit of the age in which they lived, the later
generations said, “The Companions were far greater than us; we are not
their patrons,” just as they explicitly demonstrated and testified against
themselves that their capacity to acquire knowledge from the Qurʾan and
Sunnah was lesser than that of the Companions. They said, “We are not
capable of doing that, not because of the limitations of the Qurʾan and
Sunnah, but because of our own shortcomings and limitations. Conse-
quently, we are content to follow someone who is more knowledgeable
about them than we are.” So it will be said to them, “Why do you denounce
the one who follows them, rules according to them, seeks judgments from
them, and presents the statements of the scholars before their statements,
accepting whatever conforms to them, rejecting whatever opposes them?”
You should just accept that you have not reached this verdant grove of
knowledge, so why [35] do you denounce the one who has reached it and
tasted its sweetness? How have you restricted the vast blessings of God,
which cannot be imagined or conceived by all the intellects of the uni-
verse? Thus, even if the followers [of the Qurʾan, the Sunnah, and the
opinions of the Companions] are present in your age, growing up along-
side you, and even if there exists a close affinity between them and you,
they could still attain this understanding, for God bestows His blessings
upon whomever He wants from among His creation. God, the Exalted,
denounced the one who refused to acknowledge the prophecy [of Muham-
mad, may the peace and blessings of God be on him] arguing that God had
turned it away from the nobles and leaders of society and bestowed it on
the one who did not have these characteristics, with His statement, Is it
they who would portion out the Mercy of your Lord? It is We Who portion out
between them their livelihood in the life of this world: and We raise some of them
above others in ranks, so that some may command work from others. But the
Mercy of your Lord is better than the (wealth) which they amass. [Q., al-
Zukhruf, 43:32].
And the Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be on him, said,
“The example of my community is like the rainfall: it is not known whether
the first or the last part is better.”166 God, the Exalted, has informed us
about the ones who will be successful in the Hereafter that they will be
 A Disputation between an Imitator and His Adversary 193

A large number of people from those of old, and a few from those of later times.
[Q., al-Wāqiʿah, 56:13–14]. And the Exalted One informs us that, It is He
Who has sent among the unlettered people an Apostle from among themselves,
to recite to them His signs, to sanctify them, and to instruct them in scripture
and wisdom, although they were, before this, in manifest error; then He said,
As well as (to confer all these benefits upon) others of them, who have not al-
ready joined them: And He is exalted in Might, Wise. And then He also said,
Such is the Bounty of God, which He bestows on whom He wills: and God is the
Lord of the highest bounty. [Q., al-Jumʿah, 62:2–4].
This page intentionally left blank
 Glossary

akdariyyah A case in inheritance law in which the propositus is survived by her

husband, her mother, full sister, and paternal grandfather.
ahl al-ḥadīth The people of ḥadīth, scholars who favored reliance on scripture in
legal and theological matters.
ahl al-rāʾy Scholars who favored the use of personal reasoning or opinion (rayʾʾ) in
legal and theological matters.
ahl al-ẓāhir Textualist and literalist scholars.
dhawq Experience, taste, intuition.
fatwā (pl. fatāwā) Legal verdict issued by a muftī.
faqīh Legal scholar.
furūʿ Substantive law.
fiqh Positive law.
ḥadīth (pl. aḥādīth) Narrative or report of the deeds and sayings of the Prophet.
ḥajj Major pilgrimage.
ḥalālah A marriage conducted in order to allow a divorced couple to return to each
other.
ḥikmah Rationale, wisdom.
ḥīlah (pl. ḥiyal) Legal fiction.
iftāʾ The discipline of issuing verdicts (by a muftī).
iḥrām State of ritual consecration at the time of the major or minor pilgrimage.
ijmāʿ Consensus.
ijtihād Independent legal reasoning; a jurist’s effort to deduce the law from its
sources.
ikhtilāf Disagreement, difference of opinion.
imām Scholar, ruler, prayer leader.
iqāmah The second call to prayer.
istiḥsān Juristic preference.
istijmār Cleaning oneself with dry material.
istinjāʾ Washing oneself after defecation.
196 Glossary

iʿtikāf Worship carried out in seclusion in a mosque.

ittibāʿ Following another person or his practice, based on evidence.
ittifāq Agreement.
jihād Fighting in God’s cause.
jizyah Tax paid by a minority community living in the Islamic state.
kashf Mystical unveiling.
kalālah A case in inheritance law in which the propositus leaves behind no ascen-
dants or descendants.
kalām Speculative theology.
khabar (pl. akhbār) News, report; also, a synonym for ḥadīth.
kunyah A personal name derived from the name of one’s child.
madhhab (pl. madhāhib) A juristic/theological school.
maqṣad (pl. maqāṣid) Goal, objective.
marfūʿ A ḥadīth report that is raised to the Prophet (lit., elevated).
mashhūr Well-known, widespread.
maṣlaḥāh Considerations of public interest.
mawqūf (lit., halted) A report from a Companion only, which, barring exceptions, is
not treated as a marfūʿ tradition.
muʿāmalāt Civil transactions and affairs.
mudabbar A slave with a contractual agreement to be freed after his/her master’s
death.
mudhāmmatān A dark green color.
muftī A jurist who issues fatāwā.
muḥaqqib One who follows other people in religion without proof or evidence.
Muḥarram The first month of the Islamic calendar.
muḥkam Perspicuous, said of a word or text conveying a firm and unequivocal
meaning.
muḥrim A person in the state of ritual consecration (iḥrām).
mujmal Ambiguous, referring to a category of unclear words.
mujtahid Legist competent to derive law based on his ijtihād.
mukātib A slave who was contracted to be freed upon payment of an agreed sum.
mukhtaṣar Compendium.
muqallid One who performs taqlīd.
mursal A discontinued or disconnected ḥadīth, especially at the level of a Companion.
muṣarrāh Purchase of an animal with milk in its udders.
musnad A ḥadīth with a continuous chain of transmitters.
nafīr A party or expedition going forth for jihād (cf. 9:122).
naṣab Patronymic.
naṣṣ (pl. nuṣūṣ) A text; a clear injunction; an explicit textual ruling.
qiblah Direction of prayer, towards the Sacred Mosque in Mecca.
qiṣāṣ Lex talionis (law of retaliation).
qiyās Analogical reasoning, rationality.
 Glossary 197

qullah A volume measurement of water.

Qurʾan The literal word of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in Arabic
and transmitted through continuous testimony.
radd Amount left over after one’s property has been divided among the Qurʾānic
sharers.
rakʾāh Unit of prayer.
rayʾ Personal reasoning or opinion.
sadd al-dharāʾiʿ Blocking the means to evil.
ṣaḥīḥ Valid, authentic.
salaf The pious forefathers, referring to the Companions, their successors, and the
generation following them.
salām Salutation offered at the end of the prayer.
sharīʿah The sacred law as contained in scripture.
Sunnah An established practice or course of conduct, specifically that of the Prophet.
tābiʿī (pl. tābiʿīn) One from the generation following that of the Companions.
tajdīd Renewal.
takbīr The prefatory formula (“God is Great”) recited during ritual prayer.
takhrīj The process whereby legal opinions are derived, based on extant legal opin-
ions of a scholar or school.
ṭalāq Divorce.
talbiyah The prefatory formula recited on arrival at the Sacred Precincts of the Holy
Mosque at Mecca, during the ḥajj.
talfīq Combining the rulings of two or more schools regarding a particular action.
tamattuʿ A case in which the minor and major pilgrimages are performed together
in one journey, separated by an interval.
taqlīd Imitation; following the views and opinions of others.
ṭarīqah (pl. ṭuruq) A Sufi sect.
tawātur Continuous recurrence.
tayammum Purification or dry ablution with clean earth, in the absence of water.
ʿulamāʾ (sing. ʿalim) Religious scholars.
ummah The faith community of Islam.
umm al-walad A slave woman who has borne children to her master.
ʿumrah Minor pilgrimage.
uṣūl Basic principles.
uṣūl al-fiqh Jurisprudence. The principles by which law is derived from scripture.
walījah Friend, protector.
wuḍūʾ Ablution with water.
zakāt (lit., purity) Legal alms.
zinā Unlawful sexual intercourse.
This page intentionally left blank
 Notes

in t roduc t ion

1. Ḥabīb Aḥmad Kīrānwī, al-Dīn al-qayyim, in Zafar ʿUthmānī, Iʿlāʾ al-sunan

(Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2001), 19:9106.
2. A recent and welcome change to this trend is Caterina Bori, A Scholar in the
Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Ǧawziyyah
(Rome: Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino, 2010). See also Birgit Krawietz, “Ibn
Qayyim Al-Jawzīyah: His Life and Works,” Mamlūk Studies Review 10, no. 2
(2006): 19–64; Livnat Holtzman, “Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah,” in Essays in Arabic
Literary Biography, edited by Joseph E. Lowry and Devin J. Stewart (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 2009), 202–223.
3. See Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and His Times. Karachi:
Oxford University Press, 2010.
4. See Abdul-Hakim al-Matroudi, “The Hanbalī School of Law in the Light of Con-
temporary Western Studies,” Journal of Qurʾanic Studies 8, no. 2 (2006):
260–203 (an Arabic article in an English/Arabic journal).
5. By far the most comprehensive biographical work on Ibn al-Qayyim remains
Bakr Abū Zayd, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah: Ḥayātuh, āthāruh, mawāriduh (Riyadh:
Dār al-ʿĀṣimah, 1992). A representative sample of biographical notices on Ibn
al-Qayyim can be found in al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām (Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li-l-Malāyīn,
2002), 6:56; Ibn Ḥajar, al-Durar al-kāminah fī aʿyān al-miʾah al-thāminah (Hy-
derabad: Majlis Dāʾirah al-Maʿārif al-ʿUthmāniyyah, 1972), 5:137; al-Shawkāni, al-
Badr al-ṭāliʿ bi-maḥāsin man baʿd al-qarn al-sābiʿ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿah al-Saʿādah,
1348/1930), 2:143; Ibn Mufliḥ, al-Maqṣad al-arshad fī dhikr aṣḥāb al-Imām Aḥmad
(Riyadh: Maktabah al-Rushd, 1990), 2:384; al-Suyūṭī, Bughyah al-wuʿāh fī ṭabaqāt
al-lughawiyyīn wa-l-nuḥāh (Beirut: al-Maktabah al-ʿAṣriyyah, 1964), 1:63; al-
Dhahabī, al-Muʿjam al-mukhtaṣṣ bi-l-muḥaddithīn (al-Ṭāʾif: Maktabah al-Ṣiddīq,
1408/1988), 269; al-Dāʾūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub
200 Notes to Pages 3–5

al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1983), 2:93–97; Ibn al-Taghrībirdī, al-Manhal al-ṣāfī wa-l-mustawfā

baʿd al-wāfī (Cairo: Maṭbaʿah Dār al-Kutub wa-l-Wathāʾiq al-Qawmiyyah, 2002),
9:240–242; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāyah wa-l-nihāyah (Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 2010),
15:353–354 al-Ṣafadī, Kitāb al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt (Beirut: Dār ʾIhyāʾ al-Turāth al-
ʿArabī, 2000), 2:195–197; Ibn Rajab, Dhayl ʿalā ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābilah (Mecca:
Maktabah al-ʿUbaykān, 2005), 5:170–179; Ibn ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī
akhbār man dhahab (Beirut: Dār Ibn Kathīr, 1992), 8:287–291.
6. Zafar ʿUthmānī, Iʿlāʾ al-sunan (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1997). On the
Deobandī movement, see Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India:
Deoband, 1860–1900, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1982. Henceforth,
all references to the Iʿlaʾ al-sunan are to this edition.
7. al-Shawkānī, al-Qawl al-mufīd fī adillah al-ijtihād wa-l-taqlīd, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
ʿAbd al-Khāliq (Kuwait: Dār al-Qalam, 1976), 56–57; al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād al-nuqqād
ilā taysīr al-ijtihād, ed. Ṣalaḥ al-Dīn Maqbūl Aḥmad (Kuwait: Dār al-Salafiyyah,
1405/1985); Shāh Walī Allāh, ʿIqd al-jīd fī aḥkām al-ijtihād wa-l-taqlīd (Cairo:
al-Maṭbaʿah al-Salafīyyah, 1965); Rashīd Riḍā, al-Manār (16 Shaʿbān 1319/28
November 1901). In another issue of al-Manār (16 Rajab 1321/8 October 1903),
Riḍā published an abridged version of Ibn al-Qayyim’s essay on taqlīd.
8. See Muhammad Naasir Al-Albaani (al-Albānī), The Prophet’s Prayer, Sallallaahu
ʿalaihi Wasallam, Described from the Beginning to the End as Though You See It,
trans. Usama Hasan (Ipswich, Suffolk: Al-Haneef Publications, 1993), especially
the introduction and appendices, for the author’s criticism of taqlīd. For a con-
temporary Wahhābī critique of taqlīd, see Saʿd al-Shithrī, al-Taqlīd wa-aḥkāmuh
(Riyadh: Dār al-Waṭan, 1995); Yūsuf Qaraḍāwī, Kayfa nataʿāmal maʿ al-turāth wa-
l-tamadhhub wa-l-ikhtilāf (Beirut: Muʾassasah al-Risālah, 2005).
9. Taqī Usmānī, The Legal Status of Following a Madhhab, trans. Mohammad Amin
Kholwadia and ed. Muhammad Dhakir Shaikh (Karachi: Zam Zam Publishers,
1998, 2nd ed. 2001); Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī, al-Lā madhhabiyyah
akhṭar bidʿah tuhaddid al-sharīʿah al-Islāmiyyah (Damascus: Dār al-Fārābī, 2005);
see also al-Būṭī’s al-Salafiyyah: Marḥalah zamāniyyah mubar̄ akah lā madhhab
Islāmī (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1988); ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Yāfiʿī, al-Tamadhhub: Diras̄ ah
taʾṣīliyyah muqāranah li-masāʾil wa-aḥkām al-tamadhhub (Beirut: Muʾassasah al-
Risālah Nāshirūn, 2006).
10. Muhammad Asad, This Law of Ours (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1987); Abdal
Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter), Understanding the Four Madhhabs: The Facts
about Ijtihād and Taqlīd (Oneonta NY: Islamic Publications, 1998?); Ibn al-Naqīb,
Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law ʿUmdat al-Salik
by Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 769/1368) in Arabic with Facing English Text,
Commentary, and Appendices, ed. and trans. Nuh Ha Mim Keller (Evanston IL:
Sunna Books, 1994).
11. ʿAbd Allāh ʿAzzām, Join the Caravan (London: Azzam Publications, 2001), 53.
 Notes to Pages 5–9 201

12. Cheryl Bernard, Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies (Santa
Monica: RAND Corporation, 2003), 64.
13. Roscoe Pound, “The Decadence of Equity,” Columbia Law Review 5 (1905): 20–35;
Max Rheinstein, ed. Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, 1954); Scott Alan Kugle, “Framed, Blamed and Re-
named: The Recasting of Islamic Jurisprudence in Colonial South Asia,” Modern
Asian Studies 35, no 2 (2001): 257–313.
14. W. M. Watt, Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1998), 73–74.
15. See Mohammad Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the
Mukhtaṣar,”Islamic Law and Society 3 (1996), 193.
16. For an excellent discussion of the issue, see Abḥāth hayʾah kibār al-ʿulamāʾ bi-l-
mamlikah al-ʿArabiyyah al-Saʿūdiyyah (Riyadh: Riʾāsah ʾIdārah al-Buḥūth al-
ʿIlmiyyah wa-l-ʾIftāʾ, 1421/2001), 3:115. See also Frank E. Vogel, Islamic Law and
Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden: Brill, 2000), chap 8.
17. Sherman Jackson, Islamic Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of
Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 77.
18. Muḥammad Saʿīd Albānī, ʿUmdāh al-taḥqīq fī l-taqlīd wa-l-talfīq (Damascus: al-
Maktab al-Islāmī, 1981), 110.
19. Albānī, ʿUmdāh al-taḥqīq, 100; Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd fī baʿḍ masaʾil
al-ijtihād wa-l-taqlīd, ed. Jāsim Yāsīn and ʿAdnān Sālim (Kuwait: Dār al-Daʿwah,
1988), 79; Birgit Krawietz, “Cut and Paste in Legal Rules: Designing Islamic
Norms with Talfīq,” Die Welt des Islams 42 (2002) 3–40.
20. See Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 99, where he cites Alan Watson, and p. xl,
where he lays out his concept of legal scaffolding.
21. Ṣāliḥ b. Muḥammad Fulānī, Īqāẓ himam ūlī l-abṣār li-l-īqtiḍāʾ bi-sayyid al-
muhājirīn wa-l-anṣār (Gujranwala: Dār Nashr al-Kutub al-Islāmiyyah, 1975), 39.
22. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn ʿan Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn, ed. Mashhūr b. Ḥasan Āl
Salmān (Riyadh: Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 1423/2002), 6:203.
23. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār ʿalā l-durr al-mukhtār (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-
ʿIlmiyyah, 1415/1994), 1:140, where he quotes the Ḥanafī scholar Ibn al Humām’s
words to this effect.
24. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār, 1:176.
25. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār, 1:177. On the idea that taqlīd was related to concerns
for the layman, see Fadel, Social Logic, 199–200.
26. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:206.
27. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 213.
28. Al-Qurṭūbī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Mahdī (Beirut: Dār
al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1423/2003), commentary on verse 2:188.
29. Ibn al-Najjār, Sharḥ al-Kawkab al-munīr (Riyadh: Maktabah al-ʿUbaykān, 1997),
4:574; al-Nawawī, Rawḍah al-ṭālibīn (Beirut: Maktab al-Islāmī, 1991), 11:117; Ibn
202 Notes to Pages 10–14

Taymiyyah, al-Fatāwā al-kubrā, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ and Muṣtafā
ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭāʾ (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1987), 5:556.
30. al-Shurunbulālī, al-ʿIqd al-farīd li-bayān al-rājiḥ min al-khilāf fī jawāz al-taqlīd, ed.
Khālid Muḥammad al-ʿArūsī, Majallah jāmiʿah umm al-qurā li-ʿulūm al-sharīʿah
17, no. 32 (1425/2004), 674–768.
31. Albānī, ʿUmdāh al-taḥqīq, 97.
32. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:203–205.
33. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:168; Zafar ʿUthmānī, Iʿlaʾ al-sunan (Beirut: Dār
al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1997), 14, sect. 2, p. 19.
34. Fadel, Social Logic, 203. See also Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6: 99–101, for a discus-
sion of whether transmission could count as fatwā and whether a muqallid could
be a muftī.
35. Shah Wali Allah (Shāh Walī Allāh), The Conclusive Argument from God: Shah
Wali Allah of Delhi’s Hujjat Allah al-Bāligha, trans. Marcia K. Hermansen (Islam-
abad: Islamic Research Institute, 2003), 472–473.
36. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 100.
37. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 209.
38. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Ashraf ʿAli Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia
(Oxford: Oneworld, 2008), 62–65.
39. Ahmad Atif Ahmad, Structural Interrelations of Theory and Practice in Islamic
Law: A Study of Six Works of Medieval Islamic Jurisprudence (Leiden, Brill, 2006).
See also the concluding discussion in Bernard G. Weiss (ed.), Studies in Islamic
Legal Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
40. Norman Calder, “Taḳlīd,”Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., P. Bearmanet al.
(Leiden: Brill, 1998), 10:137.
41. Norman Calder, “Al Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs and its Significance for General
Theory of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society 4 (1997): 139, 140, 150, 159, 161.
Calder even translates al-Nawawī as requiring “manipulation” of arguments by
the jurist, at 144.
42. Calder, Al Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs, 159.
43. Norman Calder, “The ‘Uqūd Rasm al-Muftī’ of Ibn ‘Ābidīn,” Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies 63 (2000): 219.
44. See for example, Jackson, 128.
45. Wael Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?,” International Journal of Middle
East Studies 16, no. 1 (1984): 3–41.
46. Calder, The “Uqūd Rasm al-Muftī” of Ibn ʿĀbidīn, 226. Compare with Ahmad Atif
Ahmad, Structural Interrelations, 182–196 and passim.
47. Calder, Al Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs, refers to the interpretive tradition as intel-
lectual play but also as an enactment of a religious duty (140). He claims that the
complexity and delight to be enjoyed in the study of fiqh were things established
in the juristic community, (141) and that uṣūl was something to be studied for its
own sake (158).
 Notes to Pages 14–19 203

48. Al-Karkhī, al-Uṣūl allatī ʿalayhā madār furūʿ al-Ḥanafiyyāh (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿah al-
Adabiyyah, n.d.), 84–85. In this view, the primary aim of uṣūl would, of course,
be justification. See Wael Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduc-
tion to Sunni Uṣūl al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), ix.
49. ʿUthmānī, Iʿlāʾ al-sunan, 14/2:5.
50. See Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:100–101; Fullānī, Īqāẓ.
51. See al-Dhahābī, Zaghl al-ʿIlm, ed. Muḥammad b. Nāṣir al-ʿAjmī (n.p., Maktabāh
al-Ṣaḥwah al-Islāmiyyah, 1404/1983–1984), 41.
52. Fadel, Social Logic, 226.
53. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, xx.
54. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, xxii. See also Adam Sabra, “Review of Islamic
Law and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi,”
The Journal of Law and Religion, 15, no. 2 (2001): 413–416.
55. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 88.
56. Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz al-Ḥanafī, al-Ittibāʿ, ed. Muḥammad ʿAtā Allah Ḥanīf and ʿAsim b.
ʿAbdallāh al-Qaryūti (Lahore: al-Maktabah al-Salafiyyah, 1410/1989–1990),
76–77.
57. S. A. A. Mawdudi, The Islamic Law and Constitution (Lahore: Islamic Publica-
tions, 1980), 79–80.
58. Fadel, Social Logic, 208.
59. Concerning the use of the word “imitation” for taqlīd, see Joseph Schacht, An
Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 71. See also Haim
Gerber, “Rigidity Versus Openness in Late Classical Islamic Law: The Case of the
Seventeenth-Century Palestinian Muftī Khayr al-Dīn al-Ramlī,” Islamic Law and
Society 5, no. 2 (1998): 165–195, esp. 173. Sherman Jackson, on the other hand,
argues that muqallid jurists often regarded themselves equal to the eponymous
Imāms in their ability to derive law from scripture; see Jackson, Islamic Law and
the State, 81.
60. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 81, and Adam Sabra, “Review of Islamic Law
and the State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi,” The
Journal of Law and Religion, 15, no. 2 (2001): 413–416.
61. See Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, passim. Calder states that in the system
of taqlīd, an imām, because of his interaction with scripture, is the mediator of
authority to the muqallid muftī. See Calder, Al Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs, 152.
62. Wael Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001). This trend is also apparent in standard legal
tafāsīr, such as that of al-Qurṭūbī, texts that discuss inter-madhhab ikhtilāf, such
as Ibn Qudamah’s Mughnī, and polemical pro-madhhab works, such as the Iʿlāʾ
al-sunan, all of which denounce the substantive positions of a variety of schools
and scholars and the authoritative status of those positions.
63. Sherman Jackson, “Setting the Record Straight: Ibn al-Labbād’s Refutation of al-
Shāfiʿī,” Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies 11, no. 2 (2000): 121–146.
204 Notes to Pages 19–23

64. William Graham, “Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation,” The

Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23, no. 3 (1993): 495–522.
65. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 81.
66. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:144–145. Similar comments by Abū Bakr al-Ṭarṭūshī (d.
566/1170) are cited in Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 159.
67. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:49, 64, 200.
68. Calder, The “Uqūd Rasm al-Muftī” of Ibn ʿĀbidīn.
69. Calder, The “Uqūd Rasm al-Muftī” of Ibn ʿĀbidīn, 217.
70. See Ibn Baṭṭah, al-Ibānah al-kubrā, ed. Raḍā Muʿṭī et al. (Riyadh: Dār al-Rāyah,
n.d.), 1:419; Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl al-aḥkām (Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth,
1404/1983–1984), 8:509; Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, al-Faqīh wa-l-mutafaqqih (Riyadh:
Dār Ibn al-Jawzī, 1417/1996–1997), 1:245, 2:56; al-Shawkānī, al-Qawl al-mufīd fī
adillah al-ijtihād wa-l-taqlīd (Kuwait: Dār al-Qalam, 1396/1976), 1:80; al-Ṭabarī,
Jāmiʿ al-bayān fī taʾwīl al-Qurʾān, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir (n.p: Muʾassasah
al-Risālah, n.d.), 22:390.
71. Abū Bakr al-Ṭarṭūshī, as cited in Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 159.
72. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 2:22, 38–48.
73. See Scott Lucas, “Where Are the Legal “Ḥadīth”?: A Study of the “muṣannaf” of
Ibn Abī Shayba,” Islamic Law and Society 15, no. 3 (2008): 303, 310, and passim.
74. See also al-Ṣanʿāni, Irshād al-nuqqād ilā taysīr al-ijtihād, ed. Salaḥ al-Dīn Maqbūl
Aḥmad (Kuwait: Dār al-Salafiyyah, 1405/1984–1985), 100–112.
75. George Makdisi, “The Significance of the Sunni Schools of Law in Islamic Reli-
gious History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, no. 3 (1979): 1–8.
76. This criticism of muqallid scholars is repeated at several places in Ibn al-Qayyim’s
work; see his Iʿlām, 6:127–128.
77. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:160.
78. Al-Ṣanʿāni, Irshād, 17.
79. Nimrod Hurvitz, “Schools of Law and Historical Context: Re-examining the
Formation of the Ḥanbalī Madhhab,” Islamic Law and Society, 7, no. 3 (2000):
37–64. See also Michael Cooperson, “Ibn Ḥanbal and Bishr Al-Ḥāfī: A Case
Study in Biographical Traditions,” Studia Islamica 86 (1997): 71–101; Khaṭīb al-
Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād aw Madīnah al-Salām (Cairo: Maktabah al-Khānjī,
1931), 4:412.
80. Al-ʿImrānī, al-Bayān fī madhhab al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī, ed. Qāsim Muḥammad al-
Nūrī (Damascus: Dār al-Minhāj, 2000), 72 (editor’s introduction).
81. Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ: Sharḥ al-muhadhdhab (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 2000), 1:11–23.
82. Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī, ed. ʿAbdallāh ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī and ʿAbd al-
Fattāh Muḥammad al-Ḥulw (Cairo: Ḥajr 1986–1990), 1:5.
83. George Makdisi, “The Significance of the Sunni Schools of Law,”, 6.
84. Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wādih fī uṣūl al-fiqh, ed. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, (Beirut:
Muʾassasah al-Risālah, 1999), 5:423–4.
 Notes to Pages 24–28 205

85. Al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 90.

86. See Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd, 117.
87. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:143–145.
88. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:149.
89. See Albaani, The Prophet’s Prayer Described, app. 5.
90. ʿUthmānī, Iʿlāʾ al-sunan, 14:2:84.
91. Nimrod Hurvitz, Schools of Law and Historical Context, 38. See also George
Makdisi, Ibn ʿAqil: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam (Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 1997).
92. Al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 146.
93. See Christopher Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Venera-
tion of Muslim Saints in Late Medieval Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 1998); Josef Meri,
The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
94. Al-Fullānī, Īqāẓ, 49.
95. See, for instance, Oussama Arabī, “Early Muslim Legal Philosophy: Identity
and Difference in Islamic Jurisprudence,” December 1, 1999, G. E. von Grune-
baum Center for Near Eastern Studies, Paper 1, http://escholarship.org/uc/
item/7c8253bt, at 29.
96. See al-Fullānī,Īqāẓ, 24–25, 31–33, for numerous quotations by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr
on this point.
97. Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Taʾrīkh Baghdād, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1417),
13: 420.
98. See Scott Lucas, “The Legal Principles of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī and
Their Relationship to Classical Salafi Islam,” Islamic Law and Society 13, no. 3
(2006): 289–324.
99. See Hallaq, “On the Origins of the Controversy about the Existence of Mujta-
hids and the Gate of Ijtihād,” Studia Islamica 63 (1986), 129–141. See also
ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī, Uṣūl madhhab al-Imām Aḥmad (Beirut:
Muʾassasah al-Risālah, 1996), 705–718.
100. See Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlam, 5:567–580; al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 84, also rejects this
idea and calls it an erroneous conjecture (khayāl bāṭil).
101. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlam, 4:234.
102. See John O. Voll “Renewal and Reform in Islamic History: Tajdīd and Islāh,” in
Voices of Resurgent Islam, ed. John Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press,
1983), 32–48. See also Ella Landau-Tasseron, “The ‘Cyclical Reform’: A Study of
the Mujaddid Tradition,” Studia Islamica 70 (1989): 79–117.
103. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlam, 6:125.
104. Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1974), 3:160. See also Tadwīn al-rājiḥ, an essay contained in the Abḥāth (see
bibliography).
206 Notes to Pages 29–31

105. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:151.

106. See Marie Bernard, “Ḥanafī Uṣūl al-Fiqh through a Manuscript of al-Ğassās,”
Journal of the American Oriental Society, 105, no. 4 (1985): 623–635, at 624.
107. George Makdisi, “The Juridical Theology of Shāfiʿī: Origins and Significance of
Uṣūl al-Fiqh,” Studia Islamica 59 (1984): 5–47.
108. Makdisi, Juridical Theology, 12; Ibn Taymiyyah, Kitāb al-Tisʿīniyyah, ed.
Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-ʿAjlān, (Riyadh: Maktabah al-Maʿārif lil-Nashr wa-l-
Tawzīʿ, 1999), 3:876–879; see also al-ʿImrānī, al-Bayān, 1: 69, where al-Ḥumaydī
is cited as saying that we (i.e., the ahl al-ḥadīth) wanted to refute the ahl al-rāʾy
and were unsuccessful until Shāfiʿī came to us.
109. Ibn al-Qayyim, Īʿlām, 6:125.
110. Hallaq, Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?, 12.
111. See Marie Bernard, Ḥanafī Uṣūl al-Fiqh, 625, 632, where the connection is
made with other Muʿtazilī works, such as those of ʿAbd al-Jabbār.
112. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1: 140.
113. See al-Māwardī, al-Ḥāwī al-kabīr fī fiqh madhhab al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī (Beirut: Dār
al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1994), 1:18–21.
114. Hallaq, Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?
115. Makdisi, Juridical Theology, 45, mentions several scholars who condemned al-
Juwaynī for his criticism of al-Ashʿarī.
116. George Makdisi, “Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic Religious History. I,”
Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 37–80. Makdisi observes, significantly, that a full
study of the influence of Ashʿarism on legal theory had been hindered by the
habit of Muslim chroniclers to present disputes between theological schools as
disputes between legal schools, such as Ḥanbalī against Shāfiʿī or more fre-
quently, Ḥanafī against Shāfiʿī, when the term “Shāfiʿī” here actually referred
to the Ashʿarīs. See Makdisi, Juridical Theology, 22, 42.
117. Al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 9 (editor’s introduction). The editor also cites al-Maqrīzī for
his account of the trials suffered by those who would not adhere to a madhhab.
For the fatwā on marriages between a Ḥanafī woman and a Shāfiʿī man, which
was issued by al-Nasafī, see al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 16–23 (editor’s introduction).
The issue is raised also by the taqlīd critic al-Albānī (Albaani), in his The Proph-
et’s Prayer Described.
118. See Bernard Weiss, “Ibn Taymīyya on Leadership in the Ritual Prayer,” in Is-
lamic Legal Interpretation: Muftīs and Their Fatwās, ed. Muhammad Khalid
Masud, Brinkley Messick, and David S. Powers (Karachi: Oxford University
Press, 2005), 63–71, and Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd.
119. Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wādih, 5:422.
120. See Ibn Mullā Farrūkh al-Qawl al-sadīd, which begins with the basic argument
that God has not obligated anyone to be a follower of any school and then de-
velops the argument to conclude that one may pray behind an imām from a
different school.
 Notes to Pages 31–33 207

121. Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz, al-ʾIttibāʿ, 25, 79–81.

122. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:234–5.
123. For more on this point, see Muḥammad al-ʿArūsī ʿAbd al-Qādir, al-Masāʾil al-
mushtarakah bayn uṣūl al—fiqh wa uṣūl ul-dīn (Riyadh: Maktabah al-Rushd,
2009), 270–284, 288–295, 322–325.
124. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, xxv.
125. al-Juwaynī, al-Talkhīṣ fī uṣul al-fiqh, (Beirut: Dār al-Bashāʾir al-Islāmiyyah,
1417/1996), 3:334; al-Ghazālī, al-Mustaṣfā, (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah,
1413/1993), 352. See also Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd, 53–57, where this
view is attributed to the Muʿtazilīs, and later Ḥanafī scholars are shown trying
to distance themselves from it. The issue is also discussed in Ibn ʿAqīl, al-
Wādiḥ, 5: 379–390.
126. Qarāfī dicusses this issue at several places in his works. See, for instance,
Qarāfī, Nafāʾis al-uṣūl fī sharḥ al-maḥṣūl, (Makkah: Maktabah Nizār Muṣtafā
al-Bāz, 1416/1995), 1:161.
127. This is the first issue discussed by al-Rāzī in his commentary on the verse 2:29:
“He it is who created for you all that is on the earth”; see Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī,
Tafsīr mafātīḥ al-ghayb (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2000), 2:142.
128. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī and Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, al-Ibhāj fī Sharḥ al-minhāj
(Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1995), 3:41, 62. For a discussion of the ten-
sion in the works of kalām theologians who also practiced jurisprudence, see
Ahmad al-Raysūnī, Imām al-Shātibī’s Theory of the Higher Objectives of Islamic
Law, 197–221. Shāh Walī Allāh also briefly refers to this debate in his Hujjat
Allāh al-Bāligha, 11. See also ʿAlī b. ʿAbbās b. ʿUthmān al-Ḥukmī, “Ḥaqīqah al-
Khilāf fī l-Taʿlīl bi-l-Ḥikmah wa ʾAthruh fī l-Fiqh al-Islāmī,”Majallah jāmiʿah
ʾUmm al-Qurā, 7, no. 9 (1414/1993–1994): 11–85.
129. See Ibn al-Najjār, Sharḥ al-kawkab al-munīr, 4:39.
130. For a discussion of the theological significance of this debate, see Shirāzī,
Sharḥ al-Lumaʿ, (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1408/1988), 2:1043–1044.
131. Note that Jackson himself believes that al-Qarāfī’s Ashʿarism had a negligible
influence on his legal theory. See also al-ʿArūsī ʿAbd al-Qādir, al-Masāʾil al-
mushtarakah, 322–323.
132. Al-Rāzī might be said to be one of the major influences on al-Qārafī’s thought.
Qārafī wrote two major commentaries (the Tanqīḥ al-fuṣūl and its commentary,
Sharḥ tanqīḥ al-fuṣūl) on al-Rāzī’s famous uṣūl work, al-Maḥṣūl; see Jackson,
Islamic Law and the State, 7.
133. The construction of scholarly authority by developing a cult of piety has been
explored briefly in Jonathan E. Brockopp, “Competing Theories of Authority in
Early Mālikī Texts,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, ed. Bernard G. Weiss
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 3–22, in which he discusses the existence of a “great
sheikh theory” in Mālikī law. The creation of a “super-human” founder- Imām
paradigm has also been commented on by Scott Lucas, “Abū Bakr Ibn
208 Notes to Pages 33–37

al-Mundhir, Amputation, and the Art of Ijtihād,” International Journal of Middle

Eastern Studies 39 (2007): 351–368, at 363.
134. See al-Shaʿrānī, al-Mīzān al-kubrā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1997),
1:40–41.
135. Jackson asserts that, in the regime of taqlīd, claims of ijmāʿ actually came to
conceal the biases of muqallid scholars.
136. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:181–181.
137. See Jackson’s introduction to his Islamic Law and the State, and Fadel, Social
Logic, 209–210. Fadel also says that it was possible, within the regime of taqlīd,
to speak of correct or incorrect interpretations because of the conventions or
“rules of recognition” of particular schools. He argues that this was not possi-
ble under a system of ijtihād. This is a confusing statement. If it is particular
linguistic or legalistic conventions that determine the correctness or inaccu-
racy of a statement, there is no reason that such rules of language cannot also
work in the system of ijtihād, provided there is agreement in the interpretive
community over how this is to be done. If the point is that, in the regime of
ijtihād, there are various interpretive communities following different rules,
then this problem applies equally to divergent rules between schools in the
regime of taqlīd.
138. Ibn al-Qayyim’s view might also go back to an older Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī skepti-
cism about the occurrence of ijmāʿ. See Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of
al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunni Ḥadīth Canon
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 144–145.
139. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 56.
140. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 64. On the importance of theological argu-
ments in the debates on maṣlaḥah, see Felicitas Opwis, Maṣlaḥa and the Pur-
pose of the Law: Islamic Discourse on Legal Change from the 4th/10th to 8th/14th
Century (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
141. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 24.
142. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 177.
143. Al-Rāzī, al-Maḥṣūl fī ʿilm uṣūl al-fiqh, (Beirut: Muʾassasah al-Risālah, 1992),
5:176, 179.
144. See al-Ṣafadī, Kitāb al-wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, 2:195–197; Bori, A Scholar in the Shadow,
13–44. In the same volume, see Birgit Krawietz, “Transgressive Creativity in
the Making: Ibn Qayyim al Ǧawziyyah’s Reframing Within Ḥanbalī Legal
Methodology,” 47–66; Ahmad al-Raysūnī, Imām al-Shātibī’s Theory of the
Higher Objectives and Intents of Islamic Law (London: International Institute of
Islamic Thought, 2005), 393.
145. Ibn al-Qayyim states clearly that there is no restriction on a qāḍī also delivering
fatwās; Iʿlām, 6:139.
146. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:203–205.
147. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:167.
 Notes to Pages 37–40 209

148. See, for instance, Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 5:209–520, 584–605. In this section of
the book, Ibn al-Qayyim lists the fatāwā of the Prophet in both theological and
legal matters. A similar approach is adopted in Iʿlām, 4:58–336, where Ibn al-
Qayyim discusses the ways in which certain groups maintain that there is often
a conflict between the Qurʾan and the Sunnah. His examples are drawn from
theological and legal sects.
149. See for instance the comments of the prominent Muʿtazilī qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār,
cited in Oussama Arabī, Early Muslim Legal Philosophy, 50. This work also ex-
plores the significance of al-Shāfiʿī’s Uṣūl as a riposte to Muʿtazilī legal theory
and theology.
150. See al-Shāfiʿī, al-Risālah, trans. Majid Khadduri (Cambridge: Islamic Texts So-
ciety, 1997), 288; Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 1:92, 3:116. For a discussion of the theo-
logical significance of al-Shāfiʿī’s insistence on the authority of solitary ḥadīth,
see Umar F. Abd-Allah, “Theological Dimensions of Islamic Law,” in The Cam-
bridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008), 245.
151. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:47, 6:517.
152. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 1:369–383.
153. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 2: 359, 3: 168, 5:579.
154. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:337.
155. Ibn al-Qayyim goes further than most Muslim scholars in attempting to iden-
tify the rationale behind specific religious rulings. See the very long section in
which he attempts to do this, Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 3:281–425.
156. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:553–565. Ibn al-Qayyim offers 99 proofs for the validity of
sadd al-dharāʾiʿ, one proof for each of the 99 enumerated names of God, see Ibn
al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 5:66. On sadd al-dharāʾiʿ, see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Prin-
ciples of Islamic Jurisprudence, (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2003), 397–409.
157. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 3:91–99, 116.
158. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 3:220–225, 4:134, 355.
159. See, for instance, Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 5:5–65. For a Ḥanafī perspective on this
issue, see Satoe Horii, “Reconsideration of Legal Devices (hiyal) in Islamic Ju-
risprudence: The Ḥanaf ĭs and Their “Exits” (makhārij),”Islamic Law and Soci-
ety 9, no. 3 (2002): 312–357. The author argues that the Ḥanafīs regarded ḥiyal
as legal solutions drawn from an understanding of the spirit of the law (such as
the principle of creating ease) as interpreted by their scholars. Horii also points
to the existence of a traditionalist critique based on the kind of arguments ad-
vanced by Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, at 342. Makdisi also refers to several Ḥanafī
scholars, such as al-Bazdawī, who came up with alternative views on this sub-
ject; see John Makdisi, “Legal Logic and Equity in Islamic Law,” American Jour-
nal of Comparative Law, 33, no. 1 (1985); see also Brown, Canonization, 237.
160. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:74, 100.
161. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6: 169–179.
210 Notes to Pages 40–45

162. See also Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:191–192 for the author’s views on how to deter-
mine which of several conflicting aḥādīth to follow.
163. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:180–181. See also Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wādiḥ, 5: 379–390, for an
entire chapter devoted to a refutation of those scholars who support the opin-
ions of their schools by refusing to accept the idea that scriptural evidence can
be used to favor one set of legal principles over others.
164. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:209.
165. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:169.
166. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:235.
167. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:68.
168. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:179–180.
169. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:200.
170. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:49, 64, 200–1.
171. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:201. Note that for Norman Calder, a muftī who presents
proofs for his view is somehow blurring the boundaries between muftī and
author, a view clearly rejected by Ibn al-Qayyim who calls on muftīs to mention
proofs for their verdicts.
172. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:84–107.
173. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:239–273; see also Shāfiʿī Risālah, 109–123.
174. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:240.
175. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:239–249. Ibn al-Qayyim’s examples of the issues in
which the knowledge of the people of Medina would be preferred (e.g., weights
and measures, the nature of the call to prayer, the number of units of prayer,
the imposition of zakāt (alms taxes) on fruits, etc., relies on ʿAbd al-Wahhāb
al-Baghdādī’s (d. 422/1031) discussion of such issues. Ibn al-Qayyim had
praised the qāḍī for his fiqh and his staunch defense of the traditionalist stance
on affirming the attributes of God. See Baghdādi, al-Maʿūnah, ed. Hāmish ʿAbd
al-Ḥaqq (Riyadh: Maktabah al-Tijāriyyah), 1:89 (editor’s notes).
176. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:267–268.
177. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:273.
178. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 3: 349.
179. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:388–389. For a discussion of this principle in relation
to the Companions in particular, see Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:394–408.
180. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:408.
181. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:394–408.
182. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:165–166.
183. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 5:242–247.
184. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 2:355.
185. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 5:243.
186. See the section on “The Reasons for Aḥmad’s Numerous Narrations and Their
Opposition to Each Other,” in Sharḥ al-zarkashī ʿalā mukhtaṣar al-khiraqī, ed.
Ibn Jibrīn (Riyadh: Maktabah al-ʿUbaykān, 1993), 19–21.
 Notes to Pages 45–48 211

187. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:470.

188. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:316, 431, 441, 448, 473, 488, 505. Ibn al-Qayyim also
brings up this issue when discussing the triple talāq; see Iʿlām, 4:377, 408–421,
424–425. The issue of the words used to signify divorce was also discussed
extensively by al-Qārafī, whose views were similar to those of Ibn al-Qayyim
but were strongly opposed by more loyal adherents to the Mālikī school in his
time; see Jackson, Islamic Law and the State.
189. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:338–340.
190. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:340–342.
191. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:496, 505.
192. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:158, 166. See also Binyamin Abrahamov, “Ibn Taymiyya
on the Agreement of Reason with Tradition,” The Muslim World, 82, nos. 3–4
(1992): 256–273.
193. For an interesting discussion of this topic from a theological perspective, see
Sherman A. Jackson, “The Alchemy of Domination? Some Ashʿarite Responses
to Muʿtazilite Ethics,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 31, no. 2
(1999): 185–201.
194. On the role of intuition in legal reasoning, especially in relation to the notion
of istiḥsān, see John Makdisi, “Legal Logic and Equity in Islamic Law,” 70,
73–75, 80–85.
195. A similar argument is found in Taqī Uthmānī, who argues that even if a Ḥanafī
muqallid scholar finds a ḥadīth that supports a Shāfiʿī opinion, he should be-
lieve that Abū Ḥanīfa or Ḥanafī scholars must have had a stronger reason for
not acting according to the ḥadīth. See Taqī Usmānī, The Legal Status of Follow-
ing a Madhhab, 70.
196. See, for instance, Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wādiḥ, 5: 379–390, and al-ʿArūsī, al-Masāʾil al-
mushtarakah, 295–298, 322–324.
197. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:119, 128.
198. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:234, 337.
199. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4: 337. For more on Ibn al-Qayyim’s views on qiyās see
Iʿlām, 2:251, 3:88–89. For different ways in which Ibn al-Qayyim uses the word
qiyās, see Iʿlām, 2:359, 460–466. For Ibn Qayyim’s general discussion on qiyās,
see 2:329–383. On qiyās generally, see Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurispru-
dence, 264–305. See also Wael Hallaq, “Non-Analogical Arguments in Sunni
Juridical Qiyās,” Arabica, 36, no. 3 (1989): 286–306, which discusses the vari-
ous ways in which the term qiyās was used in Islamic legal thought. Note that
al-Shāfiʿī too, in his Risālah, seems to accommodate all forms of ijtihād under
the rubric of qiyās.
200. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:58–336.
201. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 4:85–93.
202. See, for example Shah Walī Allāh of Delhi’s discussion of this debate in Hujjat
Allāh al-Bāligha, 433–434. Virtually the same account can also be found in Walī
212 Notes to Pages 48–52

Allāh, al-Inṣāf fī bayān sabab al-ikhtilāf (Lahore: Auqāf Department, Govern-

ment of the Punjab, 1971), 20.
203. Ibn Qayyim’s teacher, Ibn Taymiyyah, had even accused some ḥadīth scholars
of unfairly presenting their own proofs and concealing those of their oppo-
nents. Al-Bayhāqī and al-Ṭaḥāwī were mentioned in particular for evincing this
trend.
204. See Shāh Walī Allāh, Hujjat Allāh al-Bāligha, 470.
205. See Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd, 45–46, where he condemns this view
as pure partisanship.
206. Brown points out that such claims were actually made by scholars such as
Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī in the context of the debate on the continuity of the ḥadīth
tradition. See Brown, Canonization, 243, and Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihād
Closed?,” 24.
207. See Fullānī, Īqāẓ, 54, where this is reported as Mullā ʿAli Qārī’s mashhūr narra-
tion of the Ḥanafī opinion on the issue.
208. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law, 14–23. See also Hallaq,
Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?,” 29.
209. See Calder, Al-Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs, 137–164. Many of the categories of
muqallid jurists cited by Nawawī would not even be called muqallid by Ibn al-
Qayyim and his sympathizers. See also Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Fatāwā wa-masāʾil Ibn al-
Ṣalāḥ (Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifah, 1986), 21–39.
210. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6: 125–128.
211. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?,” 29–30; see also Abū Ẓahrah,
Muhāḍarāt fi taʾrīkh al-fiqh al-Islāmī, (Cairo: Dār al Fikr al-ʿArabī, n.d.), 128.
212. Ibn al-Shāṭṭ, Idrār al-shurūq ʿalā anwār al-furuq, published with al-Qarāfī, al-
Furūq (n.p.: Ālam al-Kutub, n.d.), 1:220.
213. Al-Shaʿrānī, al-Mīzān al-kubrā, 1:21.
214. See al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 104. See also Abdul Hakim I. Al-Matroudi, The Hanbalī
School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah: Conflict or Conciliation (Routledge: New York,
2006).
215. For Ibn ʿAqīl’s views on ijtihād and taqlīd, see al-Wādiḥ, 5:351–424.
216. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:166.
217. Al-Biri, al-Ashbāh ʿan Sharḥ al-Hidāyah, quoted in Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār,
1:167. For a discussion of whether a mujtahid can adopt the opinion of someone
more knowledgeable than himself, see Ibn Mullā Farrūkh, al-Qawl al-sadīd,
100, where he suggests that there is considerable disagreement on this issue
among the Ḥanafī Imāms.
218. See also Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:140, for a discussion of the opinions of
Ibn al-Humām and Ibn Ḥajar on how a layman is to decide which scholarly
opinion he is to follow.
219. Calder, Al-Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs.
 Notes to Pages 52–57 213

220. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:125. Compare also the comments of Benjamin Jokisch,
Islamiches Recht in Theorie und Praxis: Analyse einiger kaufrechtlicher fatwās von
Taqi’d-Dīn Ahmad b. Taymīyya (Berlin 1996), 206, 253ff., wherein he argues
that almost no scholar would claim to be an absolute independent mujtahid in
the sense of consulting scripture and nothing more, cited in Krawietz, “Cut
and Paste in Legal Rules: Designing Islamic Norms with Talfīq.”
221. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:125. See also ʿUthmānī, Īʿlāʾ al-sunan, 14:2:16.
222. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:203.
223. Ibn ʿAqīl, al-Wādiḥ, 5: 244–256.
224. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 6:203–205.
225. The rājiḥ could also be referred to as the ẓāhir. See Mardāwī, al-Inṣāf fī māʿrifah
al-rājiḥ min al-khilāf ʿalā madhhab al-imām al-mubajjal Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, ed.
Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Fīqī (Cairo: Maṭbūʿah al-Sunnah al-Muḥammadiyyah,
1955), 1:7.
226. Al-Ḥajjāwī, Zād al-mustaqniʿ fī ikhtiṣār al-muqniʿ (Riyadh: Madār al-Waṭan lil-
Nashr, 2004).
227. Al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 14–15 (editor’s introduction).
228. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?,” 74. See also Rudolph Peters, “Ijtihād
and Taqlīd in 18th and 19th Century Islam,” Die Welt des Islams 20 (1989):
132–145, at 137, where the author suggests that it is not even correct to refer to
this kind of activity as taqlīd, because an affiliated scholar fully understands his
Imām’s argument.
229. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 87; Fadel, Social Logic, 205.
230. Al-Ṣanʿāni, Irshād, 106–107.
231. Al-Ṣanʿāni, Irshād, 156.
232. Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 83–89. Ibn ʿAqīl argues that in making tarjīḥ
a jurist must give preference to one scriptural interpretation over another, or to
one ḥadīth over another and proceeds to identify the criteria on which he may
do so. See al-Wādiḥ, 2: 302–309, 350–357.
233. See for instance, al-Laknawī, Fawātiḥ al-raḥamūt (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-
ʿIlmiyyah, 2002), 2:431, where various established Ḥanafī and non-Ḥanafī
opinions in support of this proposition are cited and then refuted.
234. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity and Change in Islamic Law, 203–208.
235. Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihād Closed?,” 30; al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 65 (editor’s
notes).
236. See Jackson, Islamic Law and the State, 120.
237. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 2:56–59, 4: 232.
238. Ibn al-Qayyim, Iʿlām, 2:56.
239. Walī Allāh, al-Inṣāf, 18–19. See also al-Ṣanʿānī, Irshād, 14–15. Ibn al-Humām,
too, was considered by some a mujtahid. See al-Albānī, ʿUmdāt al-taḥqīq, 109.
240. See for example ʿUthmānī, Iʿlāʾ al-sunan, 14:2:71.
214 Notes to Pages 57–68

241. See Ibn Jibrīn, Sharḥ al-Zarkashī, 9, 15 (editor’s introduction).

242. See Scott Lucas, “Abū Bakr Ibn al-Mundhir, Amputation, and the Art of Ijtihād,”
352, referring to al-Subkī’s Ṭabaqāt al Shāfiʿiyyah. Ibn al-Mundhīr’s personal
opinions continued to be evaluated alongside those of the four established
schools in madhhab works such as the Mughnī of Ibn Qudāmah, ibid., 353.
243. Brown, Canonization, 71–73.
244. See Joseph Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press, 1950), 86.
245. See for instance, Calder, Al-Nawawī’s Typology of Muftīs; Gerber, “Rigidity
Versus Openness in Late Classical Islamic Law,” 187, states that istiḥsān was a
way of quietly introducing innovations that were socially desirable, sometimes
under the guise of qiyās khafī (hidden analogy). On the inconsistency occa-
sioned by this and by the use of custom, see Gerber, ibid., 186–192.
246. Calder, The “Uqūd Rasm al-Muftī” of Ibn ʿĀbidīn, 175.
247. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 1:167.
248. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār, 180–181.
249. Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law, 221–235.
250. See Abdal Hakim Murad (Timothy Winter), Understanding the Four Madhhabs:
The Facts about Ijtihād and Taqlīd (New York, n.d.), 14. In the same work (p. 10)
he states that the ḥadīth scholars were “all loyal adherents of one or another of
the madhhabs,” which they continued to improve and refine.
251. See Matroudi, The Hanbalī School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah, 129–169.

ch a p t e r 1

1. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1861, 1864). Similar narrations exist in Sufyān al-
Thawrī’s Tafsīr, 124 (333); ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, II. (272); al-Ṭabārī, Tafsīr,
X. (815); Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Tafsīr, VI. (1784) (10058); al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, al-
Faqīh wa-l-mutafaqqih, II. (67); al-Bayhaqī, Sunān, X. (116), al-Madkhal,
258–259.
2. Al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, ʿAbwāb al-tafsīr,” (Bāb Sūrah al-Tawbah), V. 278 (3095);
al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, X. (81); al-Ṭabarānī, al-Kabīr, XVII. 92 (218–219); Ibn Abī
Ḥātim, al-Tafsīr, VI. 1784 (10057); al-Wāḥidī, al-Wāsiṭ, II. (490) (491); al-
Bayhaqī, Sunān al-kubrā, X. (116), al-Madkhal (261); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI.
132–133; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl (1090).
3. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1863).
4. Al-Ṭabarānī, al-Kabīr, XVII. 14; al-Bazzār, Musnad (182); al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal
(830); Abū Nuʿaym, al-Ḥilyah, II. 10; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1865). MH says
its chain is very weak.
5. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1865).
6. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (831), Sunān al-kubrā, XX. 211; Ibn ʿUdayy, al-Kāmil, VI.
2081.
 Notes to Pages 68–82 215

7. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (832), Shuʿb al-imān (10311); al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, Faqīh

wa-l-mutafaqqih, II. 13.
8. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1069, 1870).
9. Abū Dāʾūd, al-Sunnah, “Luzum al-sunnah” (4611); al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (834).
MH says its chain is authentic.
10. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1872).
11. Ibid. (1873).
12. Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VI. 188; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1874–1876); al-
Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (378); Ibn Ḥazm al-Iḥkām, VI. 68, 147.
13. Ibn Ḥazm al-Iḥkām, VI. 97–98.
14. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1881).
15. Al-Ṭabarānī, al-Kabīr (8764); Ibn Ḥazm al- Iḥkām, VI. 97, 147; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr,
al-Jāmiʿ (1882).
16. Al-Bukharī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-ʿIlm,” (100), “Kitāb al-Iʿtiṣām’ (7307); Muslim, “Kitāb
al-ʿIlm,” (2673).
17. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1885).
18. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1889); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VIII. 762; Aḥmad,
Musnad, II. 321; al-Ṭaḥāwī, al-Mushkal (411); Ibn al-Jawzī, Muqaddimāh al-
mawḍūʿāt, I. 74.
19. Aḥmad, Musnad, II. 321, 365; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “Kitāb al-ʿIlm,” (3657); Bayhaqī,
al-Madkhal (186); Ibn Ḥazm al- Iḥkām, VI. 45; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1626).
20. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Nikaḥ,” (5143); Muslim (2563).
21. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ (1900).
22. Ibn ʿUdayy, al-Kāmil, VI. 2080; al-Bayhaqī, al-Zuhd (207).
23. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (262).
24. Ibn Ḥazm al- Iḥkām, VI. 120–121.

ch a p t e r 2
H
. adı̄th References
The aḥādīth in the notes below are reproduced with the kind permission of the
editor of the Arabic text, Shaykh Mashhūr Ḥasan (MH), who has provided exhaus-
tive references for all the aḥādīth and narrations cited in the work. He then proceeds
to give his own verdicts on the aḥādīth in the light of the comments of classical
ḥadīth scholars. Although all the ḥadīth references that follow are the work of
Shaykh Mashhūr Ḥasan, I have reproduced only some of the references to the more
renowned collections. MH’s own additional comments have been included only
rarely.
The ḥadīth collections are referred to by their popular names and their titles are
shortened. The name of the chapter in which the ḥadīth is found is in quotation
marks. The volume number is in roman numerals. Page numbers follow volume
numbers. The ḥadīth number is always indicated in brackets.
216 Notes to Pages 83–103

1. Ibn Mājah, Sunan, “al-Ṭahārah” (572); al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, I. 190–191; Abū Nuʿaym,
Ḥilyah, III. 317–318; al-Bayhaqī, Khilāfīyāt (836); al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, al-Faqīh wa-
l-mutafaqqih, II. 68; Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 330; al-Bukhārī, al-Taʾrīkh, VIII. 288; Abū
Dāʾūd, Sunan (337); ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (867); al-Ṭabarānī, al-Kabīr (11472).
2. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥudūd” (6827–6828).
3. Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 127; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, X. 304 (19191); Ibn Abī
Shayba, Muṣannaf, XI. 415–416.
4. Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 67.
5. Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 246; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “Ṣalāh,” (507); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām,
VI. 70–71.
6. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (152); al-Khatīb, al-Kifāyah, 48; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ,
II. 925 (1760); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 82.
7. Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 126–127; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “Kitāb al-Sunnah,” IV. 200–
201 (4607); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “Abwāb al-ʿilm,” V. 44 (2676); Ibn Majah,
Sunan, “al-Muqaddimah,” I. 15–17 (42) (43) (44).
8. Al-Nisāʾī, al-Mujtabā, “Kitāb Ādāb al-quḍāh,” VIII. 231; al-Dārimī, Sunan, I. 60;
Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VII. 241; al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī, al-Faqīh wa-l-
mutafaqqih, II. 99; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Jāmiʿ, II. 846 (1595); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām,
VI. 29–30. MH says that its chain is authentic.
9. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “Kitāb al-ʿItq” (3954); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, X. 347.
10. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-Ṭalāq” (1472).
11. Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭa,” I. 50 (137); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, I. 170.
12. Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, X. 489; al-Bukhārī, al-Taʾrīkh al-kabīr, II. 39–40; Ibn
Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 93.
13. Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 4–5; al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Faḍāʾil al-Ṣaḥābah” (3658).
14. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-ʿIlm” (88) (2052) (2640) (2659) (2660) (5104).
15. Abū Dāʾūd al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad (1252); Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Ṭahārah” (82);
Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 66; al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “al-Ṭahārah (64); Ibn Mājah, Sunan,
“al-Ṭahārah” (373); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, I. 191.
16. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-wuḍūʾ” (238); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭahārah” (281).
17. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-wuḍūʾ” (162); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭahārah” (278); al-
Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, I. 132.
18. Al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, I. 132.
19. Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭaʾ, “Kitāb al-Ṭahārah” I. 22 (12); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, I.
131; Aḥmad, Musnad, II. 237 (361) (393); al-Nisāʾī, al-Mujtabā, “Kitāb al-Ṭahārah,”
I. 176; al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “Abwāb al-Ṭahārah,” I. 100–101 (69); Abū Dāʾūd,
Sunan, “al-Ṭahārah,” I. 64 (83); Ibn Mājah, Sunan, “al-Ṭahārah,” I. 136 (386), II.
1081 (3246); al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, I. 36.
20. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-wuḍūʾ” I. 274 (172); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭahārah,” I.
234 (279) (280).
21. Al-Bukhārī, al-Taʾrīkh al-kabīr, III. 308–309; al-Dāraquţnī, Sunan, I. 401; al-
Bayhaqī, Sunan, II. 404; Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Mawḍūʿāt, II. 76. MH says that al-Bukhārī
 Notes to Pages 103–109 217

said, “This tradition is false and is the essence of rejected traditions.” Ibn Ḥibbān
said, “It is fabricated, without a doubt. The Prophet, may the peace and blessings
of God be upon him, did not say such a thing, but the people of Kufah preferred
this tradition.”
22. Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, IV. 92.
23. Al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, I. 359, 397; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, IV. 89–90.
24. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-Buyūʿ” (2148); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-Buyūʿ”
(1158) (1524).
25. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Maʿrifah (3326), Sunan al-kubrā, V. 273; al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, III.
54–55; al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, II. 22.
26. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1111); al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (1937).
27. Aḥmad, Musnad, II. 498, al-Dārimī, Sunan, II. 14; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Ṣawm”
(2380); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “al-Ṣawm” (720); Ibn Mājah, Sunan (1676); al-
Dāraquṭnī, Sunan (18412); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, IV. 219.
28. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Taqṣīr al-ṣalāh” (1086–1087); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥajj” (1338)
(414).
29. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Zakāt” (1448).
30. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Ḥudūd” (4408); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “al-Ḥudūd” (1474);
al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, VIII. 91; Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 181; al-Dārimī, Sunan, II. 231; al-
Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, IX. 104.
31. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Buyūʿ” (3332); Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 92–93; al-Bayhaqī,
Sunan al-kubrā, V. 335; al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, IV. 285–286.
32. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Zakāt” (1499) (2355) (6912) (6913); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-
Ḥudūd” (1710).
33. Aḥmad, Musnad, II. 216; al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, III. 88; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan,
VIII. 67.
34. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, II. 96 (2632); Aḥmad, Musnad, VI. 15; Abū Dāʾūd,
Sunan, “al-Ṣalāh” (937); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, II. 22–23. MH says that in
other versions it is the Prophet who says these words to Bilāl. See for instance,
Aḥmad, Musnad, VI. 12; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, II. 23, 56.
35. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb al-Ṭahārah” (274).
36. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (734); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (414).
37. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (757) (793) (6251); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣalāh” (397).
38. Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 424; al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Juzʾ Rafʿ al-yadayn fī l-ṣalāh,” 5; Abū
Dāʾūd, Sunan (730) (733) (734) (963) (966) (967); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, “al-Ṣalāh”
(304) (305); al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, “al-Sahw,” III. 34; Ibn Mājah, Sunan, “al-ʿIqāmah”
(1061); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, II. (62) (72) (73) (101) (116) (118) (123) (129).
39. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Jumʿah” (930) (931); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (875).
40. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣalāh” (431).
41. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣalāh” (431).
42. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (684) (1201) (1218) (2690) (7190); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ,
“al-Ṣalāh” (421).
218 Notes to Pages 109–115

43. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (664) (683) (687) (712) (713); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-
Ṣalāh” (418).
44. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (617) (620) (623) (1918) (2656) (7248); Muslim,
Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣiyām” (1092).
45. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Adhān” (617) (620) (623) (1918) (2656) (7248); Muslim,
Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣiyām” (1092).
46. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Wuḍūʾ (144) (394); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭahārah” (264).
47. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Iʿtikāf” (2032) (2042) (2043) (3144) (4320) (6697);
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Aymān” (1656).
48. Aḥmad, Musnad, III. 490; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Farāʾiḍ” (2906); al-Tirmidhī,
al-Jāmiʿ, “al-Farāʾiḍ” (2115); Ibn Mājah, Sunan, “al-Farāʾiḍ” (2742); al-Dāraquţnī,
Sunan, IV. 89–90; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, VI. 240, 259.
49. Abū Dāʾūd al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad (1443); Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 347; Abū Dāʾūd,
Sunan, “al-Farāʾiḍ” (2903) (2904); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, VI. 243.
50. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Diyyāt” (4564); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, VI. 220.
51. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Tayammum” (337); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (369).
52. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Wuḍūʾ (156).
53. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣulh” (2699) (4251).
54. Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 97–98; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, IX. 127.
55. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (2412) (4638) (6916) (6917) (7427); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (2373). MH
adds that this version does not say that he took retribution. In fact, retribution is
not mentioned in any version of this tradition.
56. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Aymān” (1657).
57. Aḥmad, Musnad, II. 216.
58. Al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, “al-Qasāmah,” VIII. 55; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Diyyāt” (4567).
59. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Hibah” (2586).
60. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan, “al-Ṭahārah” (385); al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, I. 166; al-Bayhaqī,
Sunan al-kubrā, II. 430.
61. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Maghāzī” (4261).
62. Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (4388); al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, “Qatʿ al-sāriq,” VIII. 87; al-Bayhaqī,
Sunan al-kubrā, VIII. 262.
63. Aḥmad, II. 180; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (1708) (1710); al-Nisāʾī Sunan, V. 44; al-
Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ (1289).
64. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥudūd” (6792); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥudūd” (1684).
65. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥudūd” (6795); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥudūd” (1686).
66. Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, VI. 200.
67. Ibn Mājah, Sunan, “al-Shufʿah” (2500) (2501); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, VI. 108. MH
says that its chain is very weak.
68. MH says that the narration that matches the above most closely is one with a
different wording and is to be found in al-Bukhārī, Taʾrīkh al-kabīr,” III. 182; al-
Bayhaqī, Sunan, VIII. 36; Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 22; Ibn Mājah, Sunan (2662); al-
Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ (1400).
 Notes to Pages 116–140 219

69. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣiyām” (1154).

70. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Buyūʿ” (2141); Muslim, “al-Aymān” (997).
71. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Aymān” (1668).
72. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, X. 305 (19194); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 128.
73. Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, IX. 73; al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-bārī, XII. 280.
74. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (2334); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, IX. 134; Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 31.
75. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Maghāzī” (4022).
76. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Imārah” (1823).
77. Ibn Qayyim discusses this issue elsewhere in his book. See also Ibn Ḥazm, al-
Iḥkām, VI. 66.
78. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Aḥkām” (7221); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, VIII. 335. MH
says that its chain is authentic, according to the conditions of the two shaykhs
[al-Bukhārī and Muslim].
79. Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VI. 438; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf, VII. 289 (13214);
al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, X. 248; Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 16. MH says that its
chain is authentic.
80. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (534); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, I. 277; ʿAbd al-Razzāq,
Muṣannaf, II. 152; Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 62.
81. Al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, “al-Taṭbīq” II. 185; al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, II. 85.
82. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (11366).
83. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (11391); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, VII. 351; Ibn Abī Shaybah,
Muṣannaf, IV. 56.
84. Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, VII. 156; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (12798).
85. Al-Bayhaqī, Sunan, VII. 155; Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, III. 360; ʿAbd al-Razzāq,
Muṣannaf (12793).
86. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (13169); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, IV. 64; al-
ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-bārī, IX. 404.
87. Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, IV. 65.
88. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān” (5000); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb
Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābāh” (4262); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 62.
89. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān” (5002); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb Faḍāʾil
al-ṣaḥābāh” (2463); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 63.
90. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābāh” (3763); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb
Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābāh” (2460).
91. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Kitāb Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābāh” (2461); Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 63.
92. Al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, III. 388; al-Bayhaqī, Madkhal (101); Ibn Ḥazm, al-
Iḥkām, IV. 211.
93. Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, IV. 214.
94. Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 337.
95. Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 43; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (499); Ibn Mājah, Sunan (706).
96. Ibn Qayyim has already mentioned that this was the position of ʿUmar and Abū
Bakr.
220 Notes to Pages 140–141

97. MH says that this is the position of Ibn Masʿūd.

98. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar.
99. MH says that this is the position of ʿAmmār. See Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf,
III. 306.
100. MH says that this is the position of ʿUthmān.
101. Al-Ṭaḥāwī, Mushkal (1864). This is the position of Anas.
102. MH says that Bazzār says, “We do not know of anyone adopting this position
except Abū Ṭalḥah.”
103. MH says that this is the position of Ibn ʿAbbās. See al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-
Tafsīr” (4909); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (1485).
104. MH says that this is the position of Ibn Masʿūd. See al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-
Tafsīr” (4910).
105. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar. See Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭaʾ, I. 329;
Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥajj” (1192).
106. MH says that this is the position of Ḥuṣayn b. ʿAlī and many others. See Ibn
Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, III. 284.
107. MH says that this is the position of Ibn ʿAbbās.
108. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (2178); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1596).
109. MH says that this is the position of a group of Companions including ʿUmar
and his son, Abū Hurayrah, Abū Bakr, and others. See Mālik, al- Mawaṭṭaʾ, I.
45, 46, 147; ʿAbd al Razzāq, Muṣannaf, I. 245 (940) (942) (947) (949) (950)
(951); al-Bayhaqī, Sunan al-kubrā, I. 166, 264.
110. MH says that this is the position of ʿUthmān. See al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ghusl”
(292). The same position is attributed to ʿAlī, Zubayr, and others. See Aḥmad,
Musnad, V. 115; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (214); Ibn Mājah, Sunan (609).
111. These include ʿUmar. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (19112); Ibn Abī Shay-
bah, Muṣannaf, VII. 336. This is also the position of ʿĀʾishah. See ʿAbd al-
Razzāq, Muṣannaf (19124); al-Dāraquṭnī, Sunan, IV. 85; al-Dārimī, Sunan, II.
366.
112. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar. See Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭaʾ, II. 516; Ibn
Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VI. 377.
113. MH says that this is the position of ʿĀʾishah. See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1453) (1454);
al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (4000) (5088).
114. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar and his son. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq,
Muṣannaf (13889).
115. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar and Ibn Masʿūd. See al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ,
“al-Tayammum” (338); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥayḍ” (368) (110) (111) (112) (113).
116. MH says that this is the position of ʿAlī. See Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, I. 183,
al-Ṭabārī, Tafsīr, V. 62.
117. MH says that this is the position of Ibn ʿAbbās, who maintained that this was
the universal practice during the time of the Prophet and Abū Bakr and the
first two years of ʿUmar’s reign. See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (1472).
 Notes to Pages 141–168 221

118. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar. See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (1472);
ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (11340). This is also the position of Abū Hurayrah,
Ibn ʿAbbās, and Ibn ʿUmar.
119. MH says that this is the position of ʿAlī. See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥajj” (1223).
120. MH says that this is the position of ʿUthmān. See Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥajj”
(1223).
121. MH says that this is the position of Ibn ʿAbbās. See al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (4227)
(5529).
122. MH says that this is the position of Saʿd b. Abī Waqqās. See Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭaʾ,
I. 142; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (414); al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunān al-kubrā, I. 131.
This is also the position of Ibn ʿUmar and ʿĀʾishah. See al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunān
al-kubrā, I. 133.
123. MH says that this is the position of Ḥudhayfah b. al-Yamān. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq,
Muṣannaf (429); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, I. 190. It is also the position of
Ibn Masʿūd. See Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, I. 190; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf
(430).
124. MH says that this is the position of Ibn Masʿūd. See al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-bārī,
IX. 404.
125. MH says that this is the position of ʿUmar.
126. MH says that this is the position of Ibn Masʿūd. See ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf
(11640); al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunān al-kubrā, VII. 380.
127. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (1472).
128. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (5319) (5320); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṭalāq” (1484);
Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 304; al-Nisāʾī, Sunan, VI. 190–191; al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ
(1193).
129. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (2314); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1697).
130. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (1834) (2783) (2825) (3077); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1353).
131. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ (1692) (1694); al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (2314).
132. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Buyūʿ” (2075) (5507) (7398).
133. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābah” (3673); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Faḍāʾil al-
ṣaḥābah” (2541).
134. Abū Dāʾūd al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad (246); al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (49); Aḥmad,
Musnad, I. 379.
135. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣalāh” (466) (3654) (3904).
136. Aḥmad, Musnad, I. 379; Abū Dāʾūd al-Ṭayālisī, Musnad (2456).
137. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Faḍāʾil al-ṣaḥābah” (3756); al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-ʿIlm” (75).
138. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-ʿIlm” (82) (3681) (7006); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “Faḍāʾil al-
ṣaḥābah” (2391).
139. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Masājid” (681).
140. Aḥmad, Musnad, IV. 154; al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ (3695).
141. Aḥmad, Musnad, V. 165, 177; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (2962).
142. Al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak, III. 317–318; al-Bayhaqī, al-Madkhal (96).
222 Notes to Pages 173–192

143. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ijārah” (2263).

144. Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ṣalāh” (421).
145. Mālik, al-Mawaṭṭaʾ, II. 513; Abū Dāʾūd, Sunan (2894); al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ
(2101); Ibn Mājah, Sunan (2724).
146. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunān al-kubrā, VIII. 335.
147. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Tayammum” (338); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ḥayḍ” (368).
148. ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (17698); Ibn Abī Shaybah, Muṣannaf, VI. 306; Ibn
Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām, VI. 86. MH points out the contrast between this narration
and that in ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Muṣannaf (17706).
149. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Buyūʿ” (2062) (7353); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Ādāb” (2154).
150. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, “al-Diyyāt” (6905) (6906) (6907) (6908); Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ,
“al-Qisāmah” (1689).
151. Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ” (3156) (3157).
152. Al-ʿAsqalānī, Fatḥ al-bārī, III. 587; al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (1757) (4401); Muslim,
Ṣaḥīḥ (1211).
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 Index

ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar, 137 Abū Yūsuf, 49, 52, 81, 97, 98, 139, 187
ʿAbdallāh Ibn Idrīs, 149 adultery, 107, 153
ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masʿūd, 71, 74, 84, 85, 94, al-Afghānī, Jamāl al-Dīn, 19
132, 137, 151, 186 Afghanistan, 5
pre-eminence of, 132–34 agreement. See ittifāq
statement of, 151 agriculture, 131, 162
ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Mubārak, 22, 149 ahl al-ḥadīth (people of ḥadīth), 20, 27,
ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Muʿtazz, 73 38, 195
ʿAbdallāh Ibn ʿAbbās, 69, 79, 127, 134, 137 ahl al-rāʾy, 20, 27, 36, 38–40, 46–47,
issues eluding, 183 103, 195
ʿAbd Ibn Salamah, 69, 76–77 ahl al-ẓāhir (textualist and literalist
ʿAbd al-Jabbār, 30 scholars), 36, 38–39, 195
ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Banī, 103 Ahl-e Ḥadīth, 3–5, 40
ʿAbduh, Muḥammad, 19 Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 22, 27, 28, 45, 62,
Abdullah Azzam, 5 81, 136, 139, 147, 149, 161
ablution, 102, 107 on consensus, 147
Abū Bakr, 84, 85, 93, 94, 109 on imitation, 97
Ibn al-Zubayr’s imitation of, 156 Musnad of, 65
imitation of, 128–31 al-Aḥwal, ʿĀṣim, 128
issues eluding, 180 al-Aḥwaṣ, Abī, 71
Abū Dāʾūd, 74, 81, 139 al-Akdariyyah, 165
Abū Ḥanīfah, 22–25, 57–58, 62, 89, akdariyyah, 195
97–98, 139, 151, 165, 187 al-Armawī, Ṣafī al-Dīn, 36
Abū Hurayrah, 74 Albānī, Muḥammad Saʿīd, 10
Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, 4 al-Albānī, Nāṣir al-Dīn, 10
Abū l-Bakhtarī, 65 Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, 72, 164
Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, 84, 133 al-ʿĀliyah, Abī, 69
issues eluding, 183 al-Aʿmash, 66
232 Index

al-Amawī, Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā b. Bernard, Cheryl, 5

Ādam b. Sulaymān, 149 bias, 42
ambiguous. See mujmal bidʿah (blameworthy innovation), 48
al-ʿĀmirī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zamʿah bin Laden, Osama, 5
al-Qurashī, 115 blameworthy innovation. See bidʿah
amputation, as punishment, 114–15 blood money, 107, 113
al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf, 45 Bori, Caterina, 199n2
analogical reasoning. See qiyās al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, 27,
analogy, 46–47, 57, 169 58, 131, 139, 162
ancestry, tracing, 157–59 al-Būṭī, Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān, 4
animals, slaughtering of, 106
al-Anṣārī, Abū Ayyūb Khālid b. Calder, Norman, 13, 19–20, 52, 58,
Zayd, 181 202n47, 210n171
al-Anṣārī, Muḥammad b. Maslamah, 181 capacities, differences in, 170–72
apostasy, 12 capital punishment, 45
Asad, Muhammad, 4 caprice. See shahwah
Ashʿarīs, 29, 30, 32–36 caravan, 173
al-Athram, 139 certainty, 79
authentic. See ṣaḥīḥ Chaplets on the Mufti’s Task (Ibn
authority ʿĀbidīn), 19
division of, 16 charitableness, 25
false claims of, 15 children
intellectual, 18, 22, 26 delivered prematurely, 180
of madhhab, 20–29 illegitimate, 115
obedience to people of, 136–37 preferential treatment between, 113
political and religious, 14–18 circumambulation (ṭawāf ), 181
of salaf, 48–50 clear injunction. See naṣṣ
of scripture, 18 community, dispute in, 144–45
taqlīd as, 18–20 Companions, 20, 23, 39, 41, 49, 72–75,
Averroes, 10 78, 85–86, 89–90, 92, 142–43
al-Awzāʿī, 81 conveying commands, 174–75
Ayyūb, Saʿīd b. Abī, 73 excellence of, 167–68
aẓhar, 54 guidance of, 118
imitation and, 134–35
al-Badrī, Abū Masʿūd, 133 imitation of ʿUmar, 150–51
al-Baghdādī, al-Khaṭīb, 20, 55, 212n206 issues concealed from, 179
al-Bakhtarī, Abī, 70, 72, 75 merit of, 191–93
basic principles. See uṣūl statements as binding proof, 169
al-Baṣrī, Abū Ḥuṣayn, 30 statements of, 94
al-Bayhaqī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. verdicts of, 153–54
Ḥuṣayn, 68–69, 80 compendium. See mukhtaṣar
al-Bazzār, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAmr b. compensation
ʿAbd al-Khāliq, 140 for injury, 106
 Index 233

for wounding livestock, 106 imitation and, 177–79

condemnation, 62, 66 scriptural, 19
by God, 120–21, 178–79 for truth, 100
conjecture, 79 executive discretion, 16
consensus, 146–47. See also ijmāʿ experience. See dhawq
considerations of public interest. See explicit textual ruling. See naṣṣ
maṣlaḥāh extremists, 100
constitutional unit, 14
continuous recurrence. See tawātur Fadel, Mohammad, 208n137
contracts of sale, 104 faith community. See ummah
corporal punishment. See ḥudūd faqīh (legal scholar), 195
fasting, 116
al-Dārī, Tamīm, 69 breaking of, 104–5
al-Dawraqī, Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm, 81 Fāṭimid Empire, 17
delayed prayer, 84 fatwā (legal verdict), 8, 10, 12, 30, 37,
Deobandīs, 2–5, 12, 40 40–45, 49–50, 195
al-Dhahabī, 14 Gülük and, 17
dhawq (experience, taste, intuition), mentioning scriptural evidence
24, 195 for, 19
dhikr (remembrance), 127 values promoted by, 47
dhimmi, 159 fiqh (positive law), 195, 202n47
al-Ḍibābī, Ashyam, 180 al-Firyābī, Jaʿfar, 81
difference of opinion. See ikhtilāf following, 76–80. See also ittibāʿ
al-Dīn al-qayyim (The Upright Faith) evidence, 64–67, 176
(Kīrānwī), 2 friend. See walījah
direction of prayer. See qiblah fundamentalists, 17
disagreement. See also ikhtilāf Furūq (al-Qarāfī), 50
in community, 144–45 furūʿ (substantive law), 25, 195
ijtihād and, 45
knowledge about, 146 Gerber, Haim, 18
discretionary punishment. See taʿzīr al-Ghazālī, 31, 32
divine purpose, 32 gnosis. See maʿrifah
of God’s law, 33 grandfather, inheritance of, 86, 88, 130,
divine will. See qadr 140, 156, 182
divorce. See also ṭalāq Grundnorm, 12
triple, 17, 40, 86, 141 guardianship
dowries, 182, 183 of maternal aunt, 112
dreams, 24 of women in marriage, 87
Dryden, John, 19 Gülük, Qayshan, 17

Encyclopaedia of Islam, 13 ḥadīth, 3, 8–11, 14, 27–28, 40, 43–44,

evidence, 91, 92, 117, 138 83, 195
following, 64–67, 176 collections of, 20
234 Index

ḥadīth (continued) Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Saīʿd, 71

of kalālah, 128–31 Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz al-Ḥanafī, 16, 31
mawqūf, 196 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, 9, 10, 19, 22, 30, 50, 58
mursal, 101, 196 Ibn Abī Shaybah, 20
musnad, 101, 196 Ibn ʿAqīl, 23, 31, 51, 52, 54
position of imitators and, 101 Ibn al-ʿĀṣ, ʿAmr, 86
response to, 139–42 Ibn ʿAwf, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd
ḥajj (major pilgrimage), 195 al-Raḥmā, 173
tamattuʿ, 181, 197 Ibn Bahdalah, Abū Bakr ʿĀṣim, 71
al-Ḥajjāwī, 54 Ibn Baṭṭah, 20
ḥalālah, 40, 195 Ibn al-Baylmānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī
Hallaq, Wael, 13 Zayd, 115
al-Ḥanafī, Akmal al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd, 8
Maḥmūd, 16 Ibn Dīnār, Abū Salamah Ḥammād b.
Ḥanafī school, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 16–17, 51–52 Salamah, 148
Ḥanbalī school, 2, 7–8, 10, 22, 28, 33 Ibn Dīnār,ʿĪsa, 76–78
Hans Kelsen, 12 Ibn Ḥajar, 9
al-Ḥārith, ʿUqbah b., 88, 163–64 Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad, 22, 28, 45, 149
harmony, with revelation, 46–48 Ibn Ḥārith, Muḥammad, 76, 77
Ḥasan, Mashhūr, 59, 215 Ibn Harūn, Abū Khālid Yazīd, 149
Hellenism, 29 Ibn Ḥasan, Muḥammad, 98, 165
ḥikmah (rationale, wisdom), 39, 195 Ibn Ḥātim, ʿAdī, 65
ḥīlah (legal fiction/stratagem), 7, 36, 40, Ibn Ḥazm
63, 195, 209n159 ʿAmr, 20
al-Ḥillī, 17 ʿAmr, 103
Hodgson, Marshall, 28 Ibn Ḥubaysh al-Asadī, Abū Maryam
Horii, Satoe, 209n159 Zirr, 71
Ḥudaybiyyah, 182 Ibn Hurmuz, 76
Ḥudhayfah b. al-Yamān, 65 Ibn Idrīs, Muḥammad, 25
ḥudūd (corporal punishment), 106 Ibn Jabal, Muʿādh, 69, 93, 186
al-Ḥumaydī, 149 Ibn Jamīl, Abū Sahl al-Haytham, 81
Hurvitz, Nimrod, 22 Ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Wakīʿ, 149
hypocrites, 68, 69, 70, 121, 135 Ibn al Jawzī, 59
Ibn Kaʿb, ʿUbayy, 84, 93, 134, 186
ʿibādāt (acts of ritual and worship), 45 Ibn al-Labbād, 19
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, Yūnus, 73 Ibn Munabbih, Wahb, 26
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū ʿUmar, 64–65, 67, Ibn al-Mundhir, 58
70, 77, 140 Ibn Murrah, ʿAmr, 69
Ibn ʿAbdallāh, Kathīr, 79 Ibn al-Muṣayyib, Saʿīd, 93
Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, ʿIzz, 28, 35 Ibn Muzayyin, Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm, 78
Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad, 3 Ibn al-Qāsim, 78, 98
Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, ʿUmar, 28 Ibn al-Qayyim, 1–4, 7–10, 14–17, 19–21, 27
 Index 235

Iʿlām of, 36–37 subcategories of, 50

traditionalist critique of taqlīd, tarjīḥ and, 54–55
37–59 ikhtilāf (disagreement, difference of
Ibn Qudāmah, 22 opinion), 8, 9, 26, 45, 195
Ibn Rushd, 10, 55 imām (scholar, ruler, prayer leader), 49,
Ibn Sahl, Abū Ṭalḥah Zayd, 181 107–9, 173, 195
Ibn Sa‘īd, Saḥnūn, 76, 98 imitation (taqlīd)
Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī, 19 abandonment of texts, 147
Ibn Ṣāliḥ, Ḥasan, 149 allowed by scholars, 164
Ibn Sallām, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim, 149 arguments of proponents of,
Ibn al-Sāʾib, ʿAtāʾ, 70 91–92
Ibn Shahāb, 79 based on speculative proofs, 74–76
Ibn al-Shāṭṭ, 50 Companions and, 134–35
Ibn al-Shaʿbī, Āmir Sharaḥīl, 68, 84, 93 condemnation of, 62, 66
Ibn Shuʿbah, Mughīrah, 181 condemned by God, 120–21,
Ibn Taymiyyah, 2, 17, 27, 31, 51 178–79
Ibn ʿUmar, 68, 139 differences in capacities and,
Ibn Umm Maktūm, 158–59 170–72
Ibn ʿUyaynah, Sufyān, 71, 73 distinguished from ittibā, 64–67,
Ibn Wahb, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh, 76–80
71, 73, 79, 139 illegitimacy of, 152
Ibn al-Walīd, Bishr, 81 impermissibility of, 142
Ibn Yasār, Abū ʿAbdallāh Muslim, 74 innovated forms of, 50–53
Ibn Yazīd, al-Sāʾib, 71 innovation and, 92, 100
Ibn Zayd, Ḥammād, 69 invalidity of, 66, 90, 177
Ibn al-Zubayr, 86, 156 liberty and, 17
idolatry, 65 mistakes of scholars and, 67–72
iftāʾ (the discipline of issuing verdicts), narration and, 177
37, 39, 195 natural disposition to, 169–70
iḥrām (ritual consecration), 105, 195 nullity of, 79, 92
ijmāʿ (consensus), 15, 33, 34, 195 permissibility of, 61, 88, 169–70
ijtihād (independent legal reasoning), prohibition of, 61, 92, 178
5–14, 23–24, 28–30, 43–45, 52, 195 proponents of, 97–101
capacity to perform, 170 rule of law, 14–18
debate over, 1 safer than ijtihād, 184
gates of, 56, 188 of scholars, 62, 187–91
obligation to perform, 87, 160–62 scholars’ prohibition of, 97, 137, 164
ongoing, 21 versus seeking evidence, 177–79
preconditions for, 49 of teachers, 169–70
regime of, 15–16, 18–20 theological rationale for, 29–32
scriptural, 53–59 three categories of, 61
speculative, 32 of ʿUmar, 150–51
236 Index

imitators, 83 Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn, 36–37, 38

approach to Sunnah, 102–18 Iʿlāʾ al-sunan (ʿUthmānī, Z.), 3, 10, 19
arguments of, 31, 92–97
attacks on non-imitators, 150 Jackson, Sherman, 7, 8, 11–13, 15, 18, 32,
categories of, 50 34, 207n131
claims about imitation of scholars, Jamāt-e Islāmī, 4–5, 17
187–91 Jamīʿat ʿUlamā-e Islām, 5
claims of consensus, 145 al-Jaṣṣāṣ, 30
as freeloaders, 164 al-Jazarī, Ḥamzah b. Abī Ḥamzah, 139
ḥādīth and, 101 Jesus, 98
later groups of, 149–50 jihād (fighting in God’s cause), 5,
responses to arguments of, 91–92, 154–55, 196
92–97 jizyah (minority tax), 181, 196
scholars and, 10–11, 13–16, 18–19, Join the Caravan (Azzam), 5
25–26, 32–34, 44–51, 164–66 Jokisch, Benjamin, 213n220
impurity, 102–3, 113 judge. See qāḍī
independent legal reasoning. See ijtihād judicial discretion, 14
inheritance, 140–41 judicial precedent, 15
akdariyyah case, 195 Jundub, 84
of grandfather, 86, 88, 130, 140, 156, jurisprudence, 33, 51, 100. See also uṣūl
182 al-fiqh
kalālah case, 196 principles of, 10, 40–44, 52
of killers, 110–11 juristic preference. See istiḥsān
law of, 165 juristic school. See madhhab
of women, 110 jurists, categories of, 50–52
injury, compensation for, 106 justification, 14, 203n48
innovation, 100 al-Juwaynī, 30, 32, 206n115
blameworthy, 48, 144 (See also al-Juʿfī, Ḥuṣayn, 70
bidʿah)
institutionalization, 7, 15, 37 kalālah, 84, 128–31, 196
intellect, 48, 185 kalām (speculative theology), 29, 30,
intellectual authority, 18, 26 33, 196
intent, scriptural, 38–40 al-Karkhī, Abū’-l-Ḥasan, 14, 22, 47
interpersonal law. See muʿāmalāt kashf (mystical unveiling), 24,
intuition. See dhawq 29, 196
iqāmah (second call to prayer), 195 al-Kaʿbī, ʿImrān b. Ḥuṣayn b. ʿUbayd
Islamization, 5 al-Khuzāʿī, 117
istiḥsān (juristic preference), 38, Keller, Nuh Ha Mim, 4
46–47, 195 khabar (news, report), 104, 196
ittibāʿ (following), 64–67, 76–80, 196 Khaybar, 183
al-ʾIttibāʿ (Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz), 16 al-Khazrajī, ʿAmr b. Ḥazm b. Zayd, 180
ittifāq (agreement), 196 al-Khiraqī, 22
 Index 237

al-Khurāsānī, Abū Rajāʾ Maṭr b. Makdisi, John, 21, 29, 209n159

Ṭahmān al-Warrāq, 162 makhārij, 209n159
al Khuzāʿī, Abū ʿUthmān b. Sannah, 79 Mālik, 19, 45, 89, 148, 151
al-Kilābī, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sufyān, 180 al-Mālikī, Abū ʿAbdallāh b.
killers, inheritance of, 110–11 Khwāzmandād al-Baṣrī, 76–77,
Kīrānwī, Ḥabīb Aḥmad, 2–3, 4, 14, 25 81–82
knowledge, 79–80, 179 al-Mālikī, Bakr b. ʿAlā l-Qushayrī, 187
acquisition of, 155 Mālikī school, 12, 35, 43
of Companions, 167–68 Mamluk period, 3
decreasing of, 123–25 al-Maqrīzī, 206n117
degrees of, 56 maqṣad (goal, objective), 32, 33, 39, 196
about disputes, 146 marfūʿ, 103, 196
people of, 75 Markazī Jamīʿat Ahl-e Ḥadīth, 5
theoretical, 150 marriage, 30
knowledgeable ones, 148–49 dissolution of, 12
kunyah, 181, 196 legalizing, 95
al-Marwazī, Muḥammad b. Naṣr b.
land, sale of, 116 al-Ḥajjāj, 147
law, rule of, 14–18 mashhūr (well-known, widespread),
Lawgiver, 39, 44, 96, 131, 171 54, 196
legal fiction/stratagem. See ḥīlah maṣlaḥāh (considerations of public
legal opinion, 18–19, 34 interest), 39, 196
multiplicity of, 123 al-Mawaṭṭaʾ (Mālik), 89
legal rulings, 7, 10, 37, 89, 126, Mawdūdī, Abū l-Aʿlā, 17
145–47, 161 mawqūf, 196
legal scaffolding, 12 al-Māzinī, Ḥabbān b. Munqidh b. ʿAmr
legal scholar. See faqīh al-Anṣārī, 104
legal theory, 33. See also maʿrifah (gnosis), 25, 33
Iʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn Medina, people of, 43, 89
legal verdict. See fatwā Messenger, 61, 63–64, 74–75, 144–45,
lex talionis. See qiṣāṣ 161, 162
literalist scholars. See ahl al-ẓāhir call of, 122–23
Lucas, Scott, 20 ‘Muʿādh and, 135–36
al Luʾluʾī, al-Ḥasan b. Ziyād, 187 obedience to, 136
minor pilgrimage. See ʿumrah
Madārij alsālikīn, 2 mudabbar, 116, 196
madhhab (juristic or theological school), al-Mudawwanah, 98
9–11, 14–16, 17, 37, 196 muezzin, 88, 159
as constitutional unit, 14 muftī, 8–10, 19, 37, 39–42, 46, 92, 196,
constructing authority of, 20–29 210n171
al-Maḥṣūl (al-Rāzī), 36 categories of, 52
major pilgrimage. See ḥajj muḥaqqib, 71, 196
238 Index

Muḥarram (first month of Islamic naṣab (patronymic), 2, 196

calendar), 196 Nāṣibīs, 31
muḥkam (perspicuous), 126, 196 al-Naṣrī, Abū Zurʿah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
mujaddid, 28 ʿAmr, 71
mujmal (ambiguous), 126, 196 naṣṣ (text, clear injunction, explicit
mujtahid, 21, 24, 29, 31–34, 54–55, 87, textual ruling), 9, 196
146, 185–86, 196 al-Nawawī, 22, 52
absolute, 28, 52 news. See khabar
categories of, 50 Nukat al-ẓarīfah (al-Ḥanafī), 16
exalted role of, 47 al-Nūr party, 5
ijtihād and, 44–45
past, 24 objective. See maqṣad
scholars, 51, 56 obligations, 176
task of, 14 to perform ijtihād, 87, 160–62
mujtahid fī l-madhhab, 54 Old Epistle (Risālah al-qadīmah), 167
mukātib, 105, 196 opinion
mukhtaṣar (compendium), 22, 196 ikhtilāf (disagreement, difference of
muqallid, 1, 26, 29–31, 33, 40, 48, 187, opinion), 8, 9, 26, 45, 195
196. See also imitators legal, 18–19, 34, 123
scholars, 10–11, 13–16, 18–19, 25–26, raʾy (personal reasoning or opinion),
32–34, 44–51 38, 197
Murad, Abdal Hakim. See Winter, tarjīḥ (preferring one opinion over
Timothy another), 11, 53–55, 125–28,
mursal, 101, 196 213n232
Muṣannaf (Ibn Abī Shaybah), 20 Orientalists, 13
muṣarrāh, 104, 196 orthodoxy, 34
Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwān Ottoman Empire, 17
al-Muslimūn), 4, 5
musnad, 101, 196 Pakistan, 4, 5
Muthannā b. Saʿīd, Abū Saʿīd, 69 patronymic. See naṣab
al-Muzanī, Abū Ibrāhīm Ismāʿīl b. al-Pazdawī, 11
Yaḥyā, 74 personal reasoning or opinion. See rayʾ
al-Muzanī, Ismāʿīl b. Yaḥyā, 80 perspicuous. See muḥkam
Muʿādh b. Jabal, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, phenomenology, Sufi, 23
68, 135–36 piety, 26, 207n133
muʿāmalāt (interpersonal law), 45 pilgrimage, 173
Muʿtazilīs, 30, 35, 207n124 hajj (major), 197
mystical unveiling. See kashf ʿumrah (minor), 197
political theory. See Ṭuruq al-ḥukmiyyah
Nāfi, Abū ʿAbdallāh, 139 positive law. See fiqh
al-Nakhaʿī, Kumayl b. Ziyād, 72, 81 Pound, Roscoe, 5
narration, 177 prayer, delayed, 84
 Index 239

prayer leader. See imām precedence to, 145, 148

preemption, 115 proofs, 48
pre-knowledge, of God, 73 Quṭb, Sayyid, 4
Privy Council, 5
proofs, 21, 169 Rabīʿ, 98
manifestation of, 61 radd, 110, 197
Qurʾanic, 48 Radd al-muḥtār (Ibn ʿĀbidīn), 10, 24
reliance on, 91 rājiḥ, 54, 213n225
scriptural, 18, 40–42, 54, 59 rakʾāh (unit of prayer), 197
soundness of, 35 Ramaḍān, 104, 116
speculative, 74–76 RAND Corporation, 5
property al-Rashīd, 49
damage, 114 rationale. See ḥikmah
transfers of, 95 rationality. See also qiyās
Prophet, 15, 21–23, 25–27, 41, 43, 83, harmony with revelation, 46–48
84, 92 rayʾ (personal reasoning or opinion),
Prophetic biography. See Zād al-maʿād 38, 197
prostration, 108 al-Rāzī, Abū Ḥātim, 148
protector. See walījah al-Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn, 32–33, 35,
punishment 207n127
amputation as, 114–15 reason, harmony with revelation, 46–48
capital, 45 reasonable faith, 19
ḥudūd (corporal), 106 recognition, rules of, 208n137
taʿzīr (discretionary), 49 reformists, 4
purification, 111 religiosities, 27
ritual, 102 religious scholars. See ʿulamāʾ
of wells, 89 remembrance. See dhikr
renewal. See tajdīd
qāḍī (judge), 9, 15, 37, 70 report. See khabar
qadr (divine will), 87 rescission, 104
al-Qaraḍāwī, Yūsuf, 4 retaliation, 115
al-Qarāfī, 15, 19, 32, 35, 50 retribution, 218n55
al-Qāʿidah, 5 revelation, 33, 63
qiblah (direction of prayer), 110, 196 harmony with reason, 46–48
qiṣāṣ (lex talionis), 107, 113, 196 revivalist movements, 3
qiyās (analogical reasoning, rationality), Riḍā, Rashīd, 4
38, 48, 57, 196 Rightly Guided Caliphs, 142, 143,
al-Qurashī, Hishām b. Saʿd, 80 168, 186
Quraysh, 22 Risālah (al-Shāfi ʿī), 38
Qurʾan, 12, 21–22, 24, 28, 32, 36, 38, Risālah al-qadīmah, 167
41, 197 ritual purification, 102
Opening Chapter of, 108 rūḥ (spirit), 39
240 Index

rule of law, 14–18 scholarly authority, 207n133

rulers. See also imām scholarly literature, 6
conditional appointment of, 114 scripture. See also Qurʾan; Sunnah
sinful, 16 authority of, 19, 20
rules of recognition, 208n137 flexibility of, 44–46
runaway slaves, 115 intent of, 38–40
interpretation of, 32
Sacred Mosque, 30 kitāb nāṭiq (speaking), 20
sadd al-dharāʾiʿ (blocking the means to proofs, 18, 40–42, 54, 59
evil), 38–39, 197 self-sufficiency of, 38–46
Ṣaḥīḥ (al-Bukhārī), 162, 167 supremacy of, 38–46
ṣaḥīḥ (valid, authentic), 197 scriptural ijtihād and taqlīd, 53–59
al-Sakhtiyānī, Ayyūb, 148 scriptural text, intent and, 38–40
salaf (pious forefathers), 21, 37, 39, 41, sexual intercourse, 87, 159
58, 62, 197 with female prisoner or slave, 112
authority of, 48–50 zinā (unlawful), 83, 128, 197
Salafī, 3, 4 al-Shāfiʿī, 11, 25, 43, 48, 80–81, 97, 127,
al-Ṣamūt, Muḥammad b. Ayyūb, 140 143, 151, 164
al-Sanābil, Abī, 153 Shāfiʿīs, 16, 51–52
al-Ṣanʿānī, 3, 23–24, 28, 51, 54 shahwah (caprice), 25
Saudi Arabia, 7 Shaqīq, 133
scholars, 10–14, 148. See also imām sharīʿah (sacred law), 7, 9, 38, 39, 45,
ahl al-ẓāhir (textualist and literalist), 47, 197
38, 195 al-Shawkānī, 3
biases of, 42 al-Shaybānī, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b.
categories of, 50 Farqad, 48, 57, 88
equality of, 94 al-Shaʿrānī, 23, 33
estranged, 80 al-Shirāzī, Abū Isḥāq, 22–23
faqīh (legal), 195 Shīʿism, 17, 31
imitation allowed by, 164 Shurayḥ, 85, 145
imitation of, 187–91 Shuʿbah b. Ḥajjāj, Abū Bisṭām, 69, 84
imitators and, 164–66 South Africa, 4
mistakes of, 67–72 South Asia, 2–4
mujtahid, 51, 56 Soviet Union, 5
muqallid, 10–11, 13–16, 18–19, 25–26, speculative theology. See kalām
32–34, 44–51 spirit. See rūḥ
Muʿtazilī, 30 al-Subkī, Ashʿarī, 30, 33
rank of, 166–67 substantive law. See furūʿ
self-imitation of, 97 succession, of rulers and leaders, 114
true followers of, 138–39 Successors, 53, 75, 89
ʿulamāʾ (religious), 197 merits of, 137–38
way of, 148–49 Sufism, 2, 21–26, 197
 Index 241

phenomenology, 23 al-Tirmidhī, Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā

Sunnah, 21, 28, 36, 38, 41, 43, 48, 67, al-Sulamī, 65
77, 85, 197 tradition, 19–20, 117
adopting, 142, 143–44 collections of, 167
adopting and abandoning parts of, traditionalists, 19, 26–27, 28, 29, 36
102–18 authority of salaf, 48–50
precedence to, 145, 148 critique of taqlīd, 37–59
Sunnīs, 16–17, 31 harmony of reason and revelation,
supremacy, 38–46 46–48
al-Suyūṭī, 55 supremacy and self-sufficiency of
scripture, 38–46
al-Ṭabarī, 20 triple divorce, 17, 40, 86, 141
tābiʿī, 197. See also Successors Ṭuruq al-ḥukmiyyah (political theory),
tajdīd (renewal), 28, 197 2, 37
takhrīj, 197 tyranny, 15–16, 17, 18
ṭalāq (divorce), 197
talfīq, 7, 197 ʿUbayd Allāh, Ismāʿīl b., 71
Taliban, 5 ʿUbayy, 152
tamattuʿ, 181, 197 ʿulamāʾ (religious scholars), 197
al-Tamīmī, Abū ʿUmar Ḥafṣ b. Ghiyāth ʿUmar
al-Nakhaʿī, 88 Ibn Masʿūd and, 132
ṭarīqah (Sufi sect), 197 imitation and, 128–31
tarjīḥ (preferring one opinion over imitation of, 150–51
another), 11, 53–55, 125–28, issues eluding, 180–82
213n232 ʿUmar Ibn Khaṭṭāb, 68, 71, 81–82, 84,
tawātur (continuous recurrence), 30, 94, 128–29
155, 197 al-Umm, 98
tayammum, 111, 180, 197 ummah (faith community), 28, 30, 197
Ṭāʾūs, 93 umm al-walad, 197
taʿzīr (discretionary punishment), 49 ʿumrah (minor pilgrimage), 197
teachers, imitation of, 169–70 United Kingdom, 4
teknonymic, 181 unlawful sexual intercourse. See zinā
testimony, of witness, 156–57 The Upright Faith (Kīrānwī), 2
textualist scholars. See ahl al-ẓāhir uṣūl (basic principles), 13–14, 18, 36,
Thābīt, Ḥabīb b. Abi, 66 197, 203n48
Thānwī, Ashraf ʿAlī, 3, 12 uṣūl al-fiqh (jurisprudence), 12–14,
al-Thawrī, Sufyān, 187 29, 197
theft, 114 ʿUthmān, issues eluding, 183
theological rationale, for taqlīd, ʿUthmānī, Taqī, 4
29–32 ʿUthmānī, Zafar, 2–3, 23, 24
theological school. See madhhab
theology, 32 valid. See ṣaḥīḥ
242 Index

Wahhābī, 3 women, 12, 30, 102

Wakīʿb. al-Jarrāḥ, Abū Sufyān, 66 inheritance of, 110
Walī Allāh, Shāh, 3–4, 10–11, 51 slave, 86, 107, 150–51
walījah (friend, protector), 99, 197 testimony of, 159
waqf, 129 wuḍūʾ (ablution with water), 102,
warning, 155 111, 197
water
impurity of, 102–3 al-Yāfiʿī, 4
qullah (volume measurement of ),
102, 197 Zād al-maʿād (Prophetic biography), 2
wuḍūʾ (ablution with), 102, 111, 197 Zād al-mustaqniʿ (al-Ḥajjāwī), 54
wealth, transferring, 95 ẓāhir, 54, 136, 213n225
Weber, Max, 5 zakāt (legal aims), 103, 105, 197
well-known. See mashhūr al-Zanād, Abī, 71
wells, purification of, 89 Zayd b. Aslam, Mālik b., 80
The Well Trodden Path (al-Mawaṭṭaʾ) Zayd b. Thābit, 84
(Mālik), 89 zinā (unlawful sexual intercourse), 83,
widespread. See mashhūr 128, 197
Winter, Timothy, 4, 59 Ziyād, Yazīd b. Abī, 68
wisdom. See ḥikmah Zoroastrians, 181
witness, testimony of, 156–57 zubur, 120